WATER RESOURCE
DEVELOPMENT AND
MANAGEMENT
WATER RESOURCES CHALLENGES IN THE ARAB
WORLD
M.E. YOUNG
Conwy, United Kingdom
THE PROBLEMS
The water shortage in the Arab World (Fig. 1) is severe
and worsening. The region receives only 1% of the world’s
renewable water resources yet contains more than 5%
of the world’s population. In most Arab states at the
start of the twenty-first century, the gross volumetric
human and environmental demand for water exceeds
natural replenishment. Per capita water availability is
worsened by a high regional population growth; a 3%
annual population growth rate halves the per capita
availability every 24 years.
The paramount need, common to all states, therefore,
is to find a sustainable balance between use and replen-
ishment by a combination of measures to increase supply
and to reduce demand. Both approaches involve technical
(engineering) developments, legal and financial measures,
improved water resources management through institu-
tional interventions, and adjustments to national policies
of water allocation.
All states need, as a priority, to develop coher-
ent national water resources policies and strate-
gies for the integrated management of water in
all sectors—agricultural, municipal, industrial and
Morocco
W. Sahara
Algeria
Mauritania
The Arab World
ArabBay.com
copyright©-All Rights Reserved
Figure 1. The Arab World.
470
environmental—in the context of the level of supply that
is sustainable and according to sectoral priority. Institu-
tional capacities to assess and manage water resources
require development in many countries.
Many states of the region share resources from river
flows or aquifers. Protocols that provide for equitable,
sustainable and secure sharing must be agreed upon.
Specific water resources problems vary from state to
state and include
• low levels of access to safe water supplies;
• inadequate or obsolete supply systems in grow-
ing cities;
• waterlogging and salinization of agricultural areas
by irrigation (e.g., along the Nile, Tigris, and
Euphrates);
• unsustainable groundwater abstraction
• pollution of aquifers and watercourses by human,
industrial, and agricultural contamination;
• pollution of overpumped coastal aquifers by sea-
water intrusion (e.g., Oman, the Gulf States, and
Libya); and
• drought and seasonal variability of water supplies.
Most freshwater in the region is used for irrigated
agriculture. However, the economic value of water used
for irrigation, in terms of the value of food produced, is
lower than its value for municipal or industrial use. This
situation has been exacerbated in some states by now
outdated national policies restricting production to low-
value staple food crops that have high water requirements.
Lebanon Kuwait
Syria Bahrain
Tunisia Palestine Iraq
Qatar
Jordan U.A.E
Libya Egypt
Saudi Arabia
Oman
Eritrea
Yemen
Sudan
Djibouti
Somalia
Comoros
 WATER RESOURCES CHALLENGES IN THE ARAB WORLD 471

Reducing water use in irrigation would be the most
effective means of reducing the water deficit in most
countries. At the same time, reallocating water to higher
value sectors would enhance the GDP of all countries
of the region. How to effect this transformation with the
minimum social disruption in the agricultural sector, while
maintaining food supplies, is the central issue of water
resources management in the region.
SUPPLY AND DEMAND AT THE START OF THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Data on water supply and demand from Arab states vary
in extent, reliability, and detail. Inventories of water
resources are still in progress in most countries, and data
on consumption, particularly, are generally inferred rather
than measured.
Table 1 shows the estimated volumes of naturally
renewable water for the region by state and per
capita. Renewable resources comprise internally renew-
able resources from groundwater recharge and drainage
to rivers and the net flows (inflows less outflows) of surface
and groundwater from neighboring states. Inflows and
outflows agreed to by treaty, or established by political
circumstances, are implicit in these data; in the eastern
Mediterranean states, particularly, such arrangements
are complex and politically uncertain (3). The proportion
of the actual renewable resource that comes from outside
a state’s borders is shown by the dependency ratio.
By 1995, resources per capita had fallen below the level
of 1000 m3 pcpa (per capita per annum) in four states
and below 500 m3 pcpa in 10 more. (An average level of
1000 m3 is regarded as the level above which a state can
be self-sufficient in food; less than 500 m3 pcpa indicates
severe water stress.) At the current rate of population
growth, there would be four and 14 states, respectively, in
these categories by 2020.
Figure 2 shows how much of this renewable resource
is provided by recharge to groundwater, for those states
where data exist. Those states that have the highest levels
of water stress rely heavily on groundwater.
In many states, groundwater is abstracted faster than
it is replenished. Figure 3 shows the proportion of the
total annual water supply that is drawn unsustainably
(‘‘mined’’) from nonrenewable (‘‘fossil’’) groundwater.
Figure 4 shows groundwater abstraction as a percentage
of renewal; in some states, groundwater is being mined
several times faster than it is replenished.
This continued depletion of freshwater resources
results from the increasing food demands of growing
populations and from agricultural policies that seek
national or local food self-sufficiency through irrigation,
regardless of the unsustainability of the water supply.
Figure 5 shows the proportion of national water supplies
allocated to irrigation.
In many states, private well owners hold unrestricted
traditional rights to groundwater for irrigation, regardless
of the unsustainability of the resource (e.g., Oman,
Yemen). Some governments have sought to exploit fossil
resources to supply large-scale agriculture (e.g., the Great

Table 1. Renewable Water Resourcesa

Actual Actual, Depen- Somalia
Internal, Total, pcpa (1995), dency Ratio,
Egypt
Million m3 Million m3 m3 /a %
Mauritania
Mauritania 400 11,400 5,013 96
Iraq
Iraq 35,200 75,420 3,688 53
Sudan 35,000 88,500 3,150 77 Djibouti
Eritrea 2,800 8,800 2,480 68 Algeria
Comoros 1,020 1,020 2,100 0
Syria
Syria 7,000 26,260 1,791 80
Somalia 6,000 15,740 1,702 62 Tunisia
Lebanon 4,800 4,407 1,465 1 Morocco
Morocco 30,000 30,000 1,110 0
Egypt 1,800 58,300 926 97 Jordan
Oman 1,650 1,650 775 0 Yemen
Djibouti 300 300 520 0 Lebanon
Algeria 13,900 14,300 512 3
Tunisia 3,520 4,120 463 15 Libya
Yemen 4,100 4,100 283 0 Qatar
Bahrain 4 116 206 97 UAE
Jordan 780 880 161 23
Saudi 2,400 2,400 134 0 Saudi Arabia
Arabia Oman
Libya 600 600 111 0 Kuwait
Palestinian 600 225 100 0
Terr. Bahrain
Qatar 51 53 96 4 0 25 50 75 100
UAE 150 150 79 0 %
Kuwait 0 20 13 100
Figure 2. Groundwater recharge as a % of total renewable water
a
References 1 and 2. resources (1,4).
472 WATER RESOURCES CHALLENGES IN THE ARAB WORLD

Egypt These data show that the reason underlying the

growing shortage of water in the Arab region is the
Sudan
increasing use of water, mainly for irrigation, at rates that
Somalia exceed rates of replenishment. Historically, governments
Morocco in the region have sought to address this problem by
Algeria augmenting water supplies through engineering methods,
Tunisia rather than by encouraging conservation. Augmentation
measures considered or implemented include interstate
Syria
and interbasin water transfer, aquifer development,
Jordan desalination, and minor processes such as cloud seeding
Yemen and fog collection. However, the full production and
Oman delivery cost of water by all these methods typically
Bahrain exceeds the economic value of the food produced, and
most water supplied by these means is now used only
Kuwait
to supply higher value urban or industrial demands. The
Qatar scope for further cost-effective augmentation of supply is
Gaza limited by technology.
UAE
Saudi Arabia
CONSERVATION AND DEMAND MANAGEMENT
Libya

0 25 50 75 100 Conservation methods used in the region include rain-

% water harvesting using small structures, recharging flood
Figure 3. Groundwater overdraft (withdrawal less renewal) as flows to aquifers, recycling of wastewater to irrigation,
a percentage of total supply (4). and leak reduction in urban networks. The storage of
flood flows and treated wastewater in aquifer zones for
later recovery and use needs to be further researched
and promoted in the region. There is also substantial
potential for increasing the conservation and re-use of
Algeria 110
treated wastewater. However, water can be most effec-
Oman 123 tively conserved by improving farming and irrigation
Syria 143 practices, in two ways: by improving food productivity
Yemen 145 per unit of water used and by reducing water losses in
irrigation systems. The former approach includes the
Jordan 150
introduction of higher yielding and more water effi-
Bahrain 180 cient (including salt tolerant) crop species and the use
Qatar 370 of scientific irrigation strategies specific to the crop
Libya 866 type and conditions. Water reduction methods include
the introduction of drip and sprinkler technology to
Kuwait 1275 replace spate irrigation and reduction in transmission
UAE 1345 and evaporation losses. In most countries of the region,
Saudi Arabia 1456 significant savings can still be made by these technical
means.
0 50 100 150 200 Despite these helpful measures, water resource deficits
% can be reversed only by fundamental changes in national
Figure 4. Groundwater withdrawal as a percentage of renewal water and food policies that reduce the water demands of
(1,4). the agricultural sector and gradually divert water to more
economically productive sectors, while, at the same time,
supporting rural communities in this transition.

Man-made River Project in Libya or for grain production

in Saudi Arabia). Access to groundwater has been easier
since about 1970, following the introduction of engine-
driven groundwater pumps and the availability of deep
drilling technology.
Figure 6 shows the volumes of ‘‘virtual’’ water already
imported either as processed food, grain, or as live food
animals, as a percentage of the total renewable water
resource. The high volumes of virtual water show clearly
that food self-sufficiency is an unrealistic target for
many states.
POSSIBLE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
It is clearly necessary for each country to develop and
implement policies and strategies to produce a new
and sustainable balance between supply and demand
in irrigation. Most countries continue to pursue supply
augmentation by various methods and to promote and
subsidize conservation through engineering methods.
Nonengineering interventions to promote conservation of
water fall into four classes:

Political
Policy revision
Water resources assessment, monitoring, and control
Pursuit of favorable international agreements for
food importation
Promoting efficient management of centralized water
supplies
Legal
Quotas (limits) on abstraction
Water rights—possibly transferable or tradable
within a basin
Restrictions on water use
Fiscal
Tariffs on water use
Taxes on pump fuel
Removal of tariffs on cheap agricultural imports
Subsidy programs for irrigation and agricultural
modernization
Institutional
Expert consultancy
Social pressure and public awareness
Development of integrated management on a river
basin or aquifer scale
Outreach and participation, including water users’
associations
The combination of approaches that is appropriate for
each country depends on the extent and effectiveness of
national and local skills and institutions.
Political
Revision of government policy and coherency of policies
between ministries and internationally, is paramount. A
lack of coordination may result in development plans that
cause unsustainable depletion of resources. Some states
in the region still actively pursue policies of food self-
sufficiency despite the lack of sustainable water resources.
The task of government is first to establish an enabling
environment in which government, industry, and non-
governmental entities work coherently toward water
resource conservation, informed by a good understanding
of the extent and quality of the resources. Second, govern-
ments and the international community must seek favor-
able international trade agreements for importing food.
Practical political interventions, whereby centralized
governments operate at least primary systems of water-
lifting and distribution, are common throughout the
region. Great investment is required to upgrade infrastruc-
ture and improve efficiency, particularly for the delivery
of municipal and rural drinking water. The capital needed
is beyond the capacity of some countries but private sector
financial participation through public–private partner-
ships is an alternative. Full privatization of water supply
is widely opposed in the region and governments need to
develop partnership models that are locally acceptable. To
reduce risk and encourage investment, governments need
to establish clear water law and robust fiscal regulations,
and improve transparency.
WATER RESOURCES CHALLENGES IN THE ARAB WORLD 473
International treaties to define shared resources and
protocols for sharing information are essential for securing
transboundary supplies. The Neil Basin Initiative and
the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System are two vehicles
through which several countries consult and collaborate
on managing the surface and underground resources of the
major resources of northeast Africa. Similar processes are
needed for the shared resources of the northern Arabian
Peninsula.
International cooperation at a wider level to promote
the development and sharing of water technology and
information is essential. Recent valuable initiatives
and foundations include the Dialogue on Water and
Climate in the Mediterranean Region, organized by the
World Conservation Union; the Middle East Desalination
Research Center, in Oman; and the International Center
for Biosaline Agriculture, in Dubai.
Legal and Fiscal
Economists believe that a sustainable water demand will
be achieved only by charging the full cost of water to all
users. The principle of charging tariffs for water delivery
is widely accepted in urban areas of the region, but costs
are only partially recovered. Stepped tariff structures
that subsidize low-volume users are common. Uncharged-
for water losses are abnormally high in some cities of
the region.
Other legal and fiscal measures, such as irrigation
quotas, water rights, and full-cost pricing are applicable
only where water law is clearly defined and where
established economic and financial frameworks facilitate
the operation of market-based systems. This is not yet the
case in most of the Arab region, where volume restrictions
on irrigators or fiscal restrictions have been and are likely
to be opposed. A cultural perspective that water is a free
natural resource is a major obstacle to the introduction of
innovative legal and fiscal instruments.
Institutional
Decentralization of water resources management to
regional and local management systems is widely regarded
as the most effective means of improving water supply
services at the level of use, coupled with a well defined
water law and integrated water resources management
policy at the national level (5).
Institutional approaches are most appropriate where
organizations and networks of civil society are amenable
to development through training, leadership, and incen-
tives. For example, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia have
developed water users’ associations and basin manage-
ment organizations that seek to bring all stakeholders
together in cooperative and participative operations. They
assess the availability and sustainability of the resources;
allocate water-use rights based on need, environmental
demand, social contingencies, and economic value; control
and monitor water distribution and quality; provide train-
ing; and collect fees to finance administration and system
maintenance.
474 WATER RESOURCES CHALLENGES IN THE ARAB WORLD

Arab states and underestimates the practicalities of

Palestinian Terr.
implementing water management changes in the contexts
Bahrain of Islamic law and, in some states, weak or inflexible
Kuwait political systems.
Algeria The holy writings from which Islamic law is derived
UAE contain many prescriptions relevant to water manage-
ment and concur with the Dublin principles regarding
Lebanon
community participation. Water is seen as a social good
Jordan that must be managed sustainably and for the good of
Qatar all; concepts of payment for delivery, the use of treated
Egypt wastewater, and privatization of delivery are regarded as
permissible (6).
Tunisia
Islam plays a prominent, central, and universally
Oman respected role throughout the region and, as an institution
Libya distinct from but working with both government and
Djibouti people, wields great influence. Islam has the potential
Saudi Arabia
to educate and lead consumers and drive the necessary
changes in social attitudes toward water management.
Mauritania
Islamic institutions can, therefore, provide leadership in
Iraq promoting water resource conservation where political and
Morocco fiscal interventions may fail.
Yemen
Syria BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sudan
1. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Water Resources
Somalia Development and Management Service. (2001). AQUASTAT
0 25 50 75 100 Information System on Water in Agriculture. World Wide Web
address: http://www.fao.org/.
%
2. Inter-Islamic Network on Water Resources Development and
Figure 5. Share of water allocated to agriculture (1). Management (INWRDAM). (1999). Table of water scarcity in
OIC states. INWRDAM, Amman, Jordan. World Wide Web
address: http://www.nic.gov.jo/inwrdam/.
3. Brooks, D.B. and Mehmet, O. (Eds.). (2000). Water Balances
Iraq in the Eastern Mediterranean. International Development
Egypt Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.
4. Lajaunie, M.-L. (1999). MENA/MED regional water data
Syria
report. In: Proceedings, Second Regional Seminar of the
Morocco MENA/MED Initiative on Water Policy Reform, Amman,
UAE Jordan, May 1999. World Bank, Washington, DC.
Saudi Arabia 5. 3rd World Water Forum, March (2003), Kyoto, Japan.
Thematic and Regional Statements. World Wide Web address:
Yemen
http://www.world.water-forum3.com/.
Lebanon 6. Faruqui, N.I., Biswas, A.K., and Bino, M.J. (Eds.). (2001).
Tunisia Water Management in Islam. United Nations University Press.
Kuwait
Oman READING LIST
Algeria
Guerquin, F., Ahmed, T., Hua, M., Ikeda, T., Ozbilen, V., and
Jordan
Schuttelar, M. (2003). World Water Actions: Making Water Flow
0 25 50 75 100 for All. World Water Council. Earthscan Publications, UK.
% Mahdi, K. (Ed.). (1998). Water in the Arabian Peninsula: Problems
& Policies. Exeter University, UK.
Figure 6. Water embedded in net food imports as a percentage
of total renewable resource (4). Rogers, P. and Lydon, P. (Eds.). (1994). Water in the Arab World.
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Schiffler, M. (1998). The Economics of Groundwater Management
The Influence of Islam in Arid Countries. Frank Cass, London, UK.
Shady, A. (2000). Summary: Arab countries session. In: Con-
Recent international prescriptions for water management, ference on Water Security in the 21st Century. The
such as the Dublin Principles of 1992 and subsequent Hague, Netherlands, March 2000. World Wide Web address:
pronouncements, have emphasized economic value as www.worldwaterforum.net/index2.html
a driving criterion for allocating water among sectors. World Bank. (1998). From Scarcity To Security—Averting a Water
This approach tends to ignore social priorities in rural Crisis in the Middle East. World Bank, Washington, DC.
 EFFLUENT WATER REGULATIONS IN ARID LANDS 475

EFFLUENT WATER REGULATIONS IN ARID
LANDS
RICHARD MEYERHOFF
CDM
Denver, Colorado
ROBERT GENSEMER
Parametrix
Corvallis, Oregon
JAMES T. MARKWEISE
Neptune and Company, Inc.
Los Alamos, New Mexico
This article addresses the regulation of water resources in
arid environments and focuses on the special considera-
tions of effluent-driven ecosystems. Effluent serves as an
increasingly important aquatic resource in the arid West,
and the application of existing regulations for natural sys-
tems to effluent-based bodies of water is receiving greater
scrutiny. Issues affecting regulation of effluent include
defining appropriate attainable beneficial uses for these
created ecosystems, net ecological benefits of effluent dis-
charge, and impacts from the modification of extant flow
regimes resulting from effluent addition. The practical
application of regulations in effluent-driven ecosystems
depends on recognizing these key issues.
EFFLUENT WATERS IN ARID ENVIRONMENTS
Effluent-based waterbodies are an important aquatic
resource in arid environments because of the limited avail-
ability of alternate sources of water. In addition to general
scarcity, water availability is sporadic and unpredictable
in dry lands; consequently, effluents from residential, com-
mercial, or agricultural activities are frequently one of
the more stable sources of water in the arid West (1).
Effluent-driven ecosystems have proliferated, as dams and
diversions, groundwater pumping, and the need to dispose
of treated effluent in metropolitan areas have modified
natural flow regimes.
Three basic natural flow regime types are perennial,
intermittent, and ephemeral. Perennial waters flow
continuously, intermittent waters flow continuously only
at certain times of the year (e.g., because of spring
snowmelt), and ephemeral waters flow only in direct
response to precipitation. Effluent-based ecosystems are
either ‘‘dependent’’ on (effluent is discharged to an
ephemeral stream channel) or ‘‘dominated’’ by (effluent
is discharged to an intermittent stream channel) treated
wastewater effluent discharge.
The discharge of effluent to intermittent or ephemeral
streams represents a discontinuity resulting in a disrup-
tion to the natural equilibrium as it exists at the time
the discharge begins. The natural tendency for the created
stream ecosystem is to restructure itself so that a new
equilibrium is achieved. This restructuring will take some
time; the length will depend on local factors and whether
additional stressors are placed on the system (e.g., con-
struction of physical structures in, across, or along the
stream, or an increase in effluent flow) (2).
Riparian systems that develop as a result of wastewater
discharged into normally dry channels may stand
in stark contrast to the adjacent upland vegetation
that is not influenced by discharge. In addition, the
terrestrial community downstream of the discharge
point can be distinctly different from the terrestrial
community upstream of the discharge. The expected
characteristics of an effluent-based waterway downstream
of the effluent discharge can be modeled conceptually
(Fig. 1). This conceptual model, which represents a created
stream ecosystem where the effluent discharge is the
only discontinuity, is based on the physical, chemical,
and biological characteristics of 10 effluent-dependent
and dominant ecosystems in the arid West (2). From
a regulatory standpoint, created or modified stream
ecosystems are a class of aquatic environments that are

Terrestrial: Increasingly dense

riparian vegetation
Downstream
Upstream

Intermittent/ephemeral
naturally or because of
hydrologic
modifications

WWTP
Discharge =
Discontinuity
Region of physical Tends toward
Physical: disequilibrium physical equilibrium

Natural processes
Area of oxygen sag modify water quality
Chemical:
Limited aquatic Increasing aquatic
community potential community potential Figure 1. Conceptual model of an
Biological: effluent-driven stream ecosystem.
476 EFFLUENT WATER REGULATIONS IN ARID LANDS
typically not distinguished from natural ecosystems. Yet,
these ecosystems may have unique attributes that result
in different expectations for a ‘‘functioning’’ ecosystem.
Given the unique nature of effluent-based waterbodies,
the challenge is to apply the existing regulatory framework
in a way that is protective of this resource and still
biologically meaningful. Below we address key regulatory
issues for protecting effluent-derived ecosystems in arid
lands. These considerations include defining ‘‘attainable
uses’’ in effluent-driven ecosystems, using net ecological
benefit as an alternative end point to measure use
attainability, and implications of modifying the flow
regime—is wetter better?
ATTAINABLE USES IN EFFLUENT-DRIVEN ECOSYSTEMS
States and tribes are required to establish beneficial uses
for surface waters under their jurisdiction. At a minimum,
existing uses must be protected (uses actually attained in
the waterbody on or after November 28, 1975). States
and tribes may go beyond the protection of existing
uses and protect designated uses, which are expressed
as goals for the waterbody. Designated uses must be
protected only if the uses are actually attainable. The EPA
defines attainable uses as those beneficial uses that can be
achieved (1) when effluent limits under the Clean Water
Act are imposed on point source dischargers and (2) when
cost-effective and reasonable best management practices
(BMPs) are imposed on nonpoint source dischargers.
If all appropriate water quality control activities are
implemented, then the pertinent question is, ‘‘what is the
best beneficial use that can be achieved?’’ Determining
what is attainable in a natural ecosystem can itself
be difficult; however, when effluent creates the aquatic
ecosystem, determining what is attainable is an even
greater challenge.
The attainable use may be equal to the designated use
or it may be something less. Consider a dry stream bed
characterized as an ephemeral flow system. At the point
of effluent input (Fig. 1), the water becomes perennial.
The addition of water changes the potential of the system
and thus what is attainable, especially with regard to
the aquatic community. The effects of water addition,
physical habitat, water quality, and other stressors define
the potentially attainable aquatic community. The result
of the interaction of these variables differs with time
and also with distance downstream from the point of
discharge (Fig. 1). Often, the water quality changes over
time as a new technology is installed, new regulations
are implemented, or the stream channel is modified. Each
change modifies the potential outcome or potential aquatic
community. In other words, defining what is attainable is
a moving target.
Determining potential or what is attainable is typically
defined in the context of the effluent quality, which is
related to the degree/type of wastewater treatment. A
general belief exists that improved treatment will result in
improved aquatic community characteristics. This is likely
to be true at low levels of treatment. For example, with
the change from primary to secondary treatment, major
improvements in the aquatic community are expected and
do occur. It is not necessarily realistic, however, to expect
the same degree of improvement with more advanced
treatment changes, such as with the addition of nutrient
removal or filtration, if the limiting factor is habitat-
related.
Failing to establish appropriate end points for beneficial
uses has significant regulatory and cost implications
because the Clean Water Act mandates that states
assess water quality in surface waters every 2 years
and determine if any of these waters is ‘‘impaired.’’
A waterbody is considered impaired if a determination
is made that, even after implementing all required
effluent limitations (technology and water-quality-based)
and BMPs, the water quality still does not meet applicable
water quality standards. This analysis presumes that
beneficial uses and criteria are appropriately established.
However, if the uses and criteria are inappropriate, the
basis for the assessment is inaccurate, and the waterbody
may be incorrectly assessed as impaired.
Impaired waters must have a total maximum daily load
(TMDL) established under the Clean Water Act. A TMDL
is the sum of the wasteload allocations for point sources
and load allocations for nonpoint sources (including
natural background), plus a margin of safety (uncertainty
factor). TMDLs are implemented through permits, BMPs,
or other water quality management methods. Pollutant
allocations are based on meeting the applicable end point
or water quality standard. TMDLs can require substantial
resources to develop and implement; thus, it is very
important to use appropriate end points as the basis for
assessing waters correctly.
Under the current method for regulating created or
effluent-based ecosystems, states typically establish the
same water quality standards or end points for effluent-
based waters as established for natural perennial waters.
This approach is based on the assumption that the aquatic
community in effluent-based waters should be the same as
the aquatic community in natural perennial waters; that
is, the attainable end point in a natural ecosystem should
be the same as the attainable end point in a created
ecosystem. When this assumption forms the basis for
implementing water quality control programs, the same
requirements for effluent limitations are applied to both
types of waters.
From a regulatory perspective, establishing appropri-
ate end points in effluent-based ecosystems is especially
problematic. The approach outlined above can result in
applying substantially more stringent effluent limitations
on facilities discharging to effluent-based ecosystems than
facilities that discharge to a perennial water. The rea-
son for this difference is that when a facility discharges
to a perennial water, credit is given to allow for mixing
the effluent with in-stream water. This credit results in
less stringent effluent limitations. No such credit is avail-
able when the receiving waterbody is dry. This approach
results in regulation that is strictly discharge or end-of-
pipe based. No consideration (positive or negative) is given
to the ecosystem of the receiving water.
The discharge of effluent to dry riverbeds creates an
aquatic ecosystem. This ecosystem may be ‘‘new,’’ or it
may replace an aquatic ecosystem that has been lost

because of dams, diversions, groundwater withdrawals,
etc. If effluent-based ecosystems are created and if they
function differently from natural perennial waters such
that what is attainable in the created ecosystem differs
from what is attainable in the natural ecosystem, then the
use of an alternative regulatory approach to implement a
water quality control program might be appropriate.
NET ECOLOGICAL BENEFIT
A concept, called ‘‘net ecological benefit,’’ addresses some of
the concerns associated with establishing attainable end
points for effluent-based waters (3,4). The net ecological
benefit methodology is a tool for evaluating whether an
alternative end point could be established if it can be
demonstrated that the ecological benefits created by the
discharge outweigh any identified detriments. A natural
progression of this thought process is to consider the
use of a ‘‘performance-based’’ approach that considers
the functionality of the ecosystem. This approach could
lead to establishing alternative success criteria or end
points for evaluating ecosystem protection. Examples of
net ecological benefit include enhancement of habitat/food
for terrestrial native or threatened and endangered
(T&E) species, enhancement or restoration of riparian
values, preservation of existing habitat that could not be
supported without effluent flow, restoration of aquatic and
riparian values lost due to human activities, enhancement
of water quality resulting in conditions conducive to
ecosystem restoration and/or preservation, improvement
or creation of habitat capable of supporting fish or allowing
migration of anadramous species, and restoration of
species diversity in aquatic ecosystems.
EPA (3) guidance notes key issues that should be
considered when evaluating whether or not a net ecological
benefit exists as a result of an effluent discharge. Foremost
among these is that effluent discharges should not produce
or contribute to concentrations of pollutants in tissues of
aquatic organisms or wildlife that are likely to be harmful
to humans or wildlife through food chain concentration.
This requirement addresses EPA and USFWS policies
to minimize persistent, bioaccumulative chemicals in
the environment. Also, a continued discharge to the
waterbody should not create or be likely to cause or
contribute to violations of other end points, for example,
downstream water quality standards or groundwater
quality. Finally, all practicable pollution prevention
programs, such as pretreatment and source reduction,
are operational and the discharger has to be appropriately
responsive to previous and ongoing compliance actions.
These considerations are designed to ensure that (1) a
minimum level of wastewater management and treatment
is implemented and (2) pollutants are not exported
from the water column into the ecosystem through the
food chain.
Use of a net ecological benefit approach as an
alternative for setting end points would change the
regulatory focus in effluent-driven ecosystems from
end-of-pipe based to ecosystem-based. Establishing this
nontraditional approach would allow recognizing the
environmental benefits of water flow in an otherwise dry
EFFLUENT WATER REGULATIONS IN ARID LANDS 477
channel. Moreover, alternative end points that include
terrestrial elements would support efforts to implement
permitting on a watershed basis, support ecological
restoration efforts, address concerns about the increasing
loss of riparian habitat in the arid West, support increased
interest in habitat restoration in urban rivers, and
potentially benefit threatened and endangered species by
maintaining wildlife migration corridors.
MODIFYING THE FLOW REGIME—IS WETTER BETTER?
The addition of effluent to a riverbed has been portrayed
as a benefit in the context that any water in a riverbed
is better than no water in a riverbed. For sites where
the effluent replaces historically natural flows, this
thought process makes sense. However, when the effluent
discharge creates a flowing river where none previously
existed, the question can be asked, ‘‘what has been lost
or changed by the addition of effluent?’’ This question
is relevant because naturally ephemeral streams have
important biological attributes that are as distinct as the
biological attributes of a natural perennial river.
The addition of an artificial perennial flow makes the
system clearly different from historical conditions (Fig. 1).
Biological attributes such as aquatic community richness
and diversity are likely to be greater. The increased
biological productivity of the aquatic community will
provide additional food resources for terrestrial organisms.
In addition to these changes in the aquatic community,
the terrestrial community will be substantially different,
especially in terms of the types of organisms supported.
Are these biological changes good? Is having a wetter
channel better biologically? These questions have no
simple answer. In fact, the answer will depend on
public values and local needs. One can easily argue that
the number of ephemeral channels, especially in arid
regions, far exceeds the number of naturally perennial
channels, and thus the creation of a perennial stream
in a previously ephemeral stream is a positive benefit.
However, in some areas, especially in rapidly developing
urban environments, the number of lost ephemeral
channels can be significant, and the loss of habitats as
a result of effluent discharge can be an important issue for
the public to consider.
The creation of effluent-driven ecosystems creates a
relatively stable aquatic environment, at least from the
standpoint of temperature and flow. Certainly, stormwater
runoff will still occasionally cause spikes in flow, but
the norm is a relatively constant flow with reduced
temperature variation (compared to what might be
expected in a natural environment). Native fish species
are adapted to the relatively episodic flow regime of
natural arid waters. These species have evolved where
abiotic factors are the dominant driver in establishing
biological communities. Accordingly, these species are
better adapted to this environment than nonnative species.
Modification of the flow regime removes this driver
and if nonnative fish become established (as they have
throughout the arid West), they may outcompete the
native species.
478 CALIFORNIA—CONTINUALLY THE NATION’S LEADER IN WATER USE
Similar to fish, the richness and diversity of native
riparian vegetation is influenced by the flow regime.
For example, the selection of native cottonwoods over
nonnative salt cedar can be driven by the distribution and
frequency of flows across the floodplain during floods.
Under a stable flow regime, native species may be
outcompeted. In the end, ecological benefits may result
from the discharge of effluent to an otherwise dry or
intermittent riverbed, but the modified flow regime is not
necessarily a positive benefit for native species.
FINDING A BALANCE IN REGULATING ARID LAND
WATERS
Among the general public, a common desire exists to
protect beneficial uses, establish water quality criteria to
protect uses, and protect riverine habitat and associated
wildlife. However, basic agreement on these fundamentals
exists, but substantial disagreement may exist over how
attainable end points should be defined and how uses
should be protected. This disagreement often stems from
differences of opinion over how end points should be
calculated, what are appropriate assumptions, and how
much conservatism or how much of a safety factor should
be built into the regulations.
The EPA (4), states, and tribes often take the simplest,
most conservative approach when establishing attainable
end points because this approach requires the least
amount of scientific data. Regulatory institutions cannot
be faulted for this. Given the number of different types of
aquatic systems (natural or created) and the various and
often competing beneficial uses of water (from protection of
native species to use of water for industry), the number of
factors that could be considered in establishing end points
for each waterbody is substantial. Resources are simply not
available to establish site-specific uses and criteria for each
waterbody. Although regulators are limited in what they
can reasonably consider when they establish criteria for
an entire state or area, options are available for modifying
uses and criteria and establishing appropriate site-specific
end points. These tools should be used, when appropriate,
because the importance of establishing correct end points
cannot be understated. If water quality control efforts
are based on unattainable uses or criteria, substantial
costs may be incurred with little or no improvement in
water quality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Ryti, R.T. and Markwiese, J.T. (in press). Assessment of
ecological effects in water-limited environments (WR-3).
Encyclopedia of Water, J. Lehr (Ed.). John Wiley & Sons, New
York.
2. Pima County Wastewater Management Department. (2002).
Habitat Characterization Study. Prepared by URS Corporation
and CDM for Arid West Water Quality Research Project,
PCWMD, Tucson, AZ.
3. EPA. (1992). Guidance for Modifying Water Quality Standards
and Protecting Effluent-Dependent Ecosystems. Interim Final.
EPA Region 9.
4. EPA. (1993). Supplementary Guidance on Conducting Use
Attainability Analyses on Effluent Dependent Ecosystems. EPA
Region 9.
CALIFORNIA—CONTINUALLY THE NATION’S
LEADER IN WATER USE
WILLIAM E. TEMPLIN
U.S. Geological Survey
Sacramento, California
In 1950, the U.S. Geological Survey began publishing a
series of water-use circulars entitled ‘‘Estimated Use of
Water in the United States.’’ Every 5 years since then
the report has been updated and now provides a valuable,
long-term data set of national water-use estimates. Since
the inception of this series, California has always reported
the largest total fresh and saline withdrawals of all
states in the Nation (Fig. 1). The most recent update
in this series (1) reports 1995 conditions. California again
accounts for the largest withdrawal of water for off-stream
uses of all states, which is about 45.9 billion gallons per
day, followed by Texas (29.6 Bgal/d), Illinois (19.9 Bgal/d),
and Florida (18.2 Bgal/d, Figs. 2 and 3).
The poster demonstrates WHY and HOW California
continues to lead the Nation in many withdrawal
categories (Figs. 4 and 5). Withdrawals include water
removed from the ground or diverted from a surface-water
source for use.
WHY? California continues to be the most populous
state in the United States, accounting for 12% of its people
(more than 32 million in 1995) followed by Texas and New
York with about 7% each (Fig. 6). In 1995, California
accounted for 5.62 Bgal/d, 14% of the Nation’s public
supply freshwater use (Fig. 7). Public supply withdrawals
are directly related to population supplied, but they also
are influenced by withdrawals to supply industrial and
commercial water users.
Figure 1. Trends in total fresh and saline withdrawals,
1950–1995.
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the
public domain in the United States of America.
 CALIFORNIA—CONTINUALLY THE NATION’S LEADER IN WATER USE
Figure 2. Total fresh and saline withdrawals by top 10 states,
1995.
Figure 3. Total fresh and saline withdrawals in the United
States during 1995, 402 Bgal/d.
Figure 4. California led all states in freshwater withdrawals
followed by Texas, Illinois, and Idaho, 1995.
HOW? Los Angeles County’s population exceeded 9.3
million in 1995 and contributed to the county’s large
public supply withdrawals. Only eight states have more
people than Los Angeles County, which accounts for 29%
of California’s population (Fig. 8).
WHY? California accounted for 28.9 Bgal/d in total
irrigation withdrawals in 1995, with 22% of the Nation’s
total irrigation withdrawals (Fig. 9).
479
Figure 5. Categories of total withdrawals in the top 10 states,
1995.
Figure 6. 1995 U.S. population—267 million.
Figure 7. U.S. public supply withdrawals, 40.2 billion gallons
per day, 1995.
• GOT MILK? California is the Nation’s largest dairy
state, producing 26 billion pounds of milk and
cheese (2).
• GOT COTTON CLOTHING? California is the
Nation’s second largest cotton producer.
• HUNGRY? More than half of the Nation’s fruits,
vegetables, and nuts are grown in California.
HOW? The total withdrawals in the Tulare-Buena Vista
Lake Hydrologic Cataloging Unit accounted for more than
8330 Mgal/d in withdrawals for irrigation uses in 1995
(Fig. 10) and 8800 Mgal/d of total freshwater. Only 13
states had more total freshwater withdrawals. This area
480 LESSONS FROM THE RISING CASPIAN
Figure 8. Public supply total withdrawals by county, in Califor-
nia, 1995.
Figure 9. Irrigation withdrawals in the United States in 1995
totals 134 billion gallons per day.
Figure 10. Irrigation total withdrawals by hydrologic cataloging
unit, in California, 1995.
contains many of California’s dairies and much of our
irrigated acreage.
Even though California leads all states in total
withdrawals, California’s per-capita use rate for total off-
stream use (1130 gal/d) ranks below the national average
(1280 gal/d, Fig. 11).
Acknowledgments
The author acknowledges the assistance of Michael B. Roque,
Illustrator, in the layout and preparation of the original poster
presented at the American Water Resources Association Annual
Figure 11. Per-capita use rates for total freshwater withdrawals
for the United States and each state, 1995.
Conference on Water Resources, November 16–19 1998, Point
Clear, Alabama.
The author also acknowledges the assistance of Tammy Shelton,
Management Analyst, in the development of the web page version
of this information.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Solley, W.B., Pierce, R.R., and Perlman, H.A., 1998, Estimated
use of water in the United States in 1995: U.S. Geological Sur-
vey Circular 1200, p. 71. http://water.usgs.gov/public/watuse/
2. California Department of Food and Agriculture. Home Page.
October 1998. http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/
LESSONS FROM THE RISING CASPIAN∗
IGOR S. ZONN
INTRODUCTION
The Caspian Sea is the biggest inland body of water in
the world. Its surface area is roughly equivalent to the
combined area of The Netherlands and Germany (about
400,000 km2 , or 144,000 mi2 ). The surface water inflow
into the sea is formed by the flow of the Volga, Ural, Terek,
∗
From Handbook of Weather, Climate, and Water: Atmospheric
Chemistry, Hydrology, and Societal Impacts, T.D. Potter and B.R.
Colman (Eds.). John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ. pp. 885–892.

Sulak, Samur, and Kura Rivers, and small Caucasian and
Iranian rivers. The watershed area of the Caspian Sea is
3.5 million square kilometers. The basin of the Volga River
makes up nearly 40% of the territory of the catchment of
the Caspian Sea, and it supplies about 80% of the total
volume of annual water flow into the sea. All components of
the Caspian ecosystem, directly or indirectly, to a greater
or lesser extent, are influenced by river flow.
The Caspian Sea basin falls into three morphologically
different parts: (1) the northern (25% of the sea area),
a shallow area (less than 10 m deep; about 20% with
depths less than 1 m) extending to a conventional
line passing from the Terek River to the Mangyshlak
Peninsula; (2) the medium (35%), with an average
depth of 170 m (the maximum being 790 m); and (3)
the southern (39%), the deepest area, with a maximum
depth of 1025 m and an average depth of 325 m. Deep
depressions in the northern and southern parts of the
sea are divided by an underwater threshold running
from the Apsheron Peninsula to Turkmenbashi (formerly
Krasnovodsk) (1).
Before the breakup of the Soviet Union in December
1991, the USSR and Iran were the only two independent
nations occupying the shores of the Caspian. With the
breakup, three additional newly independent nations
emerged along the coast: Azerbaijan, Kazakstan, and
Turkmenistan. The Russian Federation’s Caspian coast-
line is shared by three of its political units: Astrakhan
Oblast, the Republic of Kalmykia, and the Republic
of Dagestan.
NATURE OF SEA-LEVEL CHANGES IN CASPIAN SEA
The Caspian Sea is a closed basin in the inland part of
Eurasia and this sea’s water level is below that of the world
ocean. The sea basin stretches almost 1200 km from north
to south and its width varies between 200 and 450 km. The
total length of the coastline is about 7000 km. Its water
surface area is about 390,600 km2 (as of January 1993).
Water salinity in the northern part is 3–6‰ and reaches
12‰ in the middle and southern parts.
Fluctuations in sea level for various lengths of time can
be found in the data of geomorphological and historical
studies of the record of the Caspian Sea (Fig. 1). Within
the last 10,000 years, the amplitude of fluctuations of
Caspian Sea level has been 15 m (varying from −20 to
−35 m). During the period of instrumental observations
(from 1830 onward), this value was only about 4 m,
varying from −25.3 m during the 1880s to −29 m in
1977. Annual increases in the level during this period
met or exceeded 30 cm on three occasions (in 1867,
30 cm; in 1979, 32 cm; and in 1991, 39 cm). The mean
annual increment in the level in the 1978–1991 period
was 14.3 cm.
Natural factors are the primary cause of recent Caspian
Sea level fluctuations (but not the only cause). Scientists
have identified three distinct periods of level changes:
1830–1930, 1931–1977, and 1978 to the present. The first
period of 100 years saw sea-level fluctuations not exceeding
1.5 m (5 ft). Researchers considered this period to have
been relatively stable. The second period, from 1931 to
LESSONS FROM THE RISING CASPIAN 481
1977, is identified by a constant decline in level by 2.8 m
(9.1 ft), and in 1977 the Caspian Sea reached its lowest
level since the beginning of instrumental record-keeping
in the 1830s.
As the sea level declined throughout the 1950s, 1960s,
and early 1970s, Soviet scientists forecast that the decline
would continue for at least a few decades into the future.
Scientists have linked the reason for the decline to the
regulation of Volga River flow. During these decades,
major engineering activities were undertaken along the
Volga, such as the construction of water diversion canals,
reservoirs, and dams. The construction of such engineering
facilities diverted water away from the Caspian.
In response to this major drop in sea level, human
settlements bordering the sea coast began to move toward
the receding coastline. Fields and pasturelands were
prepared for use, roads and rail lines were constructed,
and housing and factories were built on the newly exposed
seabed. During the Soviet era, many people emigrated
from other parts of the region to settle along the border
of the sea. Development of infrastructure along the coast
took place to support the increasing population.
In an attempt to save the Caspian from drying out,
Soviet scientists and engineers proposed the construction
of a dam to block the flow of Caspian water to Kara-
Bogaz-Gol Bay, a large desert depression in Turkmenistan
adjacent to the sea’s eastern shore. Political decisions
made in the mid-1970s ordered the construction of the
dam, but due primarily to bureaucratic inertia, the dam
was not completed until the early 1980s. This was a few
years after the Caspian’s sea-level change had reversed
direction. Before the dam was constructed, the bay took in
40 km3 (8.6 mi3 ) of Caspian water annually. It served as
a huge evaporation pond, as well as a natural location for
the accumulation of commercially useful mineral salts.
Another Soviet government response to the decline in
the Caspian’s sea level was a diversion of water into the
Volga River from other Soviet rivers that flowed northward
into the Arctic Ocean. River water flowing into the Arctic
was viewed as wasted and without value to the Soviet
Union because it was unused by human activity.
THE CASPIAN RISES
To the surprise of Soviet scientists, the level of the sea
began to rise suddenly in 1978, the beginning of its third
period of level changes. Since then, the Caspian has risen
−25
−26
−27
m
4m
−28
−29
1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Year
Figure 1. Observed Caspian Sea level, 1835–1999.
482 LESSONS FROM THE RISING CASPIAN
steadily by more than 2.5 m. One of the first actions the
newly independent government of Turkmenistan took in
1992 was to tear down the dam in order to allow great
amounts of water to flow into Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay again
and to replenish the supply of salts.
Scientists have proposed a variety of hypotheses about
why the Caspian Sea level had increased so rapidly. These
can be clustered into the following categories: tectonic
plate movement on the seabed, climate fluctuations and
change, and hydraulic construction along the Volga River,
or some combination of these factors.
Tectonic Plate Movement Hypothesis
Tectonic movements over periods such as centuries and
millennia have been the cause of many geologic changes in
the Caspian basin. The region has been subjected to uplift,
subsidence, overthrust of landforms, seabed mud-volcanic
activity, and landslides, in addition to erosion processes
and the accumulation on the Caspian seabed of river-
transported sediments. However, it is difficult to see how
tectonic movements could cause such sharp fluctuations in
the Caspian’s sea level over relatively short periods. Thus,
it appears that such movements have had an insignificant
impact on recent sea-level fluctuations.
Climate Change Hypothesis
Today, most Russian scientists believe that climatic factors
are the real cause of the Caspian Sea level rise. Studies
by Golitsyn (2) and Golitsyn and McBean (3) indicate
that recent changes of the Caspian Sea level are 90%
associated with corresponding changes in the water
balance components of the sea, as opposed to possible
tectonic activity. The volume of inflow from rivers to the
sea increased sharply after 1978. During certain years
(e.g., 1979, 1985, and 1990), more than 350 km3 of river
water entered the sea. From 1978 until 1990, Volga River
flow exceeded 260 km3 /yr. At present, no arguments have
challenged the view that the main contribution to seasonal
and annual level fluctuations of the Caspian is accounted
for by surface inflow and evaporation levels. Within recent
decades, the sea’s fluctuations have been subjected to
anthropogenic impacts as well.
In this regard, climate has two dimensions: climate
fluctuations and climate change. Climate fluctuations
occur on various time scales, with those of interest to
present-day society being on the order of decades and
perhaps centuries. Climate-related fluctuation refers to
the increase and decrease of sea level over the course
of decades. During the past two centuries, the sea has
undergone several fluctuations. Those of the twentieth
century have adversely affected socioeconomic activities
and infrastructure along the sea’s coastline.
The view that climatic processes in the Volga basin
are the dominant cause of sea-level fluctuations has been
recently reinforced. Droughts in this basin and sharply
reduced Volga flow into the Caspian from mid-1995 until
early 1997 have been associated with a 25-cm (10-inch)
drop in Caspian level. Nevertheless, Russian scientists
still suggest that the sea level will continue to rise into the
first decades of the twenty-first century.
Climate change associated with global warming
induced by human activities has also been proposed
as the forcing factor behind the Caspian’s rise since
1978. Those who see global warming as the forcing
factor suggest that the most recent sea-level rise can
be associated with intensification of the hydrologic cycle
(i.e., more active precipitation-producing processes), an
intensification that some scientists have linked to the
human-induced global warming of the atmosphere. An
increase in precipitation within the Volga River basin
would translate into increased sea level.
Hydraulic Construction Hypothesis
Some observers have argued that the recent fall and rise in
sea level were the result of human activities. They suggest
that the widespread development of hydraulic structures
(e.g., dams, reservoirs, irrigation systems) in the Volga
River basin, beginning in the 1950s, led to a sharp decline
in Volga flow. The filling of many reservoirs built along the
rivers flowing into the Caspian, the increase in industrial
and municipal water use by several times, and changes
in the water regime of the floodplains led to a decrease of
streamflow into the sea. Such a hypothesis could be tested
by constructing a water budget model for the Caspian.
Such a model would need to identify all the inflows into
the Caspian Sea (such as from rivers and groundwater)
and all outflow from the sea (such as evaporation and
water diversions). While it is a seemingly straightforward
task, identifying all the sources and sinks of Caspian water
is not easy.
There is also a hypothesis about an Aral Sea connection.
Yet another suggestion that seems to be made at just
about every Aral or Caspian Sea conference is that the
decline in the level of the Aral Sea is linked to the rise in
level of the Caspian. The reasoning is that water diverted
from the Aral basin to the Caspian basin to irrigate the
desert sands for cotton production in Turkmenistan ends
up either being evaporated into the air or seeping into
the groundwater, which eventually makes its way into the
Caspian. However, it is important to point out that both
the recent fall and rise in the Caspian Sea level occurred
during three and a half decades of a constant decline in
the Aral’s level.
SOCIETAL IMPACTS OF SEA-LEVEL RISE
According to a UN Environment Programme estimate, the
cost of the impact of the sea-level rise of the Caspian, as
of 1994, was $30 to $50 billion (U.S.). Coastal ecosystems
have been destroyed, villages inundated and populations
evacuated, sea banks eroded, and buildings destroyed.
Coastal plains have been invaded by subsurface seawater
or have become waterlogged. Fauna have changed,
and pasturelands and sturgeon spawning grounds have
been destroyed.
Each of the five countries sharing the coasts of the
Caspian Sea has suffered losses, and those losses increased
until the mid-1990s. They suffer from the different impacts
of sea-level rise because the territory along its coastline
is neither uniformly settled nor uniformly developed

economically. Economic losses in the big cities and villages
have been higher than in the rural areas. More specifically,
in Astrakhan Oblast (equivalent to an American state),
about 10% of its agricultural land was out of production by
1995 because of sea-level rise. The coastline of the Republic
of Dagestan (also part of Russia) was affected by the
flooding of at least 40 factories in its cities of Makhachkala,
Kaspiysk, Derbent, and Sulak. Nearly 150,000 hectares
(370,000 acres) of land have been inundated, with a loss of
livestock production and breeding facilities. Much of the
650-km (390-mile) Caspian coastline of Turkmenistan is
made up of low-lying sandy beaches and dunes that are
vulnerable to coastal flooding and erosion. In fact, some
Turkmen villages that were once several kilometers from
the sea are now coastal communities. Similar adverse
impacts of sea-level rise on human settlements and
ecosystems are found in Kazakstan, Azerbaijan, and Iran.
The Caspian has been referred to as a ‘‘hard currency
sea’’ because of its large oil and natural gas reserves and
because of its highly valued caviar-producing sturgeon.
Regional reserves contain upward of 18 billion metric
tons of oil and 6 billion cubic meters (215 billion cubic
feet) of natural gas. Experts suggest that the Caspian
is second only to the Persian Gulf with respect to the
size of its oil and gas reserves, and that Turkmenistan
is a ‘‘second Kuwait.’’ If the sea level were to continue
to rise, a large part of the oil and gas mains along the
Turkmen coast would become submerged and would also
be subjected to corrosion by seawater. Coastal settlements,
which include the greater part of Turkmenistan’s oil,
gas, and chemical enterprises, would also be threatened.
Similar environmental problems would certainly affect
other Caspian coastal countries as well (4).
The Caspian Sea is unique in yet another respect:
it contains about 90% of the sturgeon that produce
the lucrative prized black caviar for export to foreign
markets. Sturgeon roe is often referred to as ‘‘black
gold.’’ Today, however, Caspian sturgeon is at risk of
extinction from overexploitation by illegal poachers and by
destitute fishermen desperately seeking funds to buy food
for their families. The sea-level rise, with its destruction
of sturgeon spawning grounds, adds yet another threat to
the endangered Caspian sturgeon.
Poachers hunt sturgeon only for its caviar. Today, they
catch sturgeon directly in the open sea. However, in the
early 1960s, prohibition was introduced by the former
USSR against catching sturgeon in the open sea. Since
that time, catching sturgeon has been carried out in the
river deltas. Sturgeon reproduce very slowly: the fish do
not spawn for the first time until they reach the age of
20–25 years. In 1990, the permissible catch of sturgeon
in the USSR was set at 13,500 metric tons. In 1996,
permissible (legal) catch was only 1200 metric tons (5).
SEA-LEVEL CHANGE AS A GLOBAL PROBLEM
Given the growing concern about, and possible evidence of,
global warming, there has been considerable speculation
about the potential impacts on coastal areas of a sea-level
rise related to global warming. Scientists who participated
in the 1995 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
LESSONS FROM THE RISING CASPIAN 483
(IPCC) Report (6) suggested that global sea level may
well increase by an additional 15–70 cm (6–27 inches)
by the end of the twenty-first century. The exact amount
of rise would depend on the actual increase in global
temperatures. Clearly, any additional increase in sea
level could have devastating consequences for coastal
communities.
All states that border bodies of water, whether along
the global oceans or inland seas, should pay attention to
fluctuations in sea level as well as to the rise in sea level
linked to global warming. Inland seas, for example, can be
viewed as living bodies in the sense that they can expand
and can shrink. These changes can occur on different time
scales: from daily to seasonally, from a year to a decade,
or a century, or a millennium. In fact, they fluctuate and
change on all these scales. The same can be said of the
open oceans, but they tend to fluctuate on much longer
time scales than do the inland seas, over periods of many
decades and centuries. Such time scales are difficult to
factor into the thinking of economic development planners,
whose time frames are on the order of years to a few
decades at most.
In essence, one can consider the Caspian as a
laboratory of sea-level change and its potential societal and
environmental consequences. For the Caspian to serve as a
true ‘‘laboratory,’’ its environmental-monitoring network,
which collapsed with the breakup of the Soviet Union,
must be restored and maintained by regional cooperation
among the Caspian states. Impacts on ecosystems that
are managed (farms and pastures) and unmanaged
(wetlands, forests, deserts) can be identified. Effective
human responses to changes in the coastal zone (both
land and sea) can also be identified and assessed;
environmental engineering proposals to deal with sea-level
changes (such as seawall construction, higher oil platforms
in the sea, diversion of water from the Caspian to the
drying Aral Sea) can be evaluated for effectiveness, taking
into consideration the scientific uncertainties surrounding
sea-level fluctuations.
Whether the global climate gets warmer, cooler, or
stays as it has been for the last several decades, the
level of inland seas will likely continue to fluctuate (the
mean ocean level has already gone up by 5–6 inches in
the twentieth century alone). Societies must learn to cope
with both short- and long-term fluctuations. In the Middle
Ages, people in the Caspian region were not allowed to
settle too close to the sea’s shore, under the threat of death.
Apparently, leaders were then aware of the dangers that
the Caspian’s fluctuating levels posed to their citizens.
Today’s leaders would be well advised to pay attention to
traditional wisdom.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Kosarev, A.N., and Yablonskaya, E.A. (1994). The Caspian
Sea. SPB Academic Pub., The Hague.
2. Golitsyn, G.S. (1989). Once more about the changes of the
Caspian Sea level. Vestnik AN SSR 9: 59–63.
3. Golitsyn G.S., and McBean, G.A. (1992). Changes of the
atmosphere and climate. Proc. Russian Acad. Sci. Geogr. Ser.
2: 33–43.
484 INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF WATER MANAGEMENT IN CHINA
4. Ragozin, A.L. (1995). Synergistic effects and consequences of
the Caspian Sea level rise. In: Proceedings of the International
Scientific Conference: Caspian Region: Economics, Ecology,
Mineral Resources. Geocenter-Moscow, pp. 120–121 (in Rus-
sian).
5. Rosenberg, I. (1996). Catching sturgeon. Itogi Magazine 4 June
(in Russian), pp. 48–50.
6. IPCC. (1996). Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate
Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF WATER
MANAGEMENT IN CHINA
RONGCHAO LI
Delft University of Technology
Delft, The Netherlands
INTRODUCTION
Located in East Asia, on the western shore of the Pacific
Ocean, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a land
area of about 9.6 million km2 . China, the most populous
country in the world, had 1.25909 billion people at the end
of 1999, about 22% of the world’s total. The population
density in China is 130 people per sq km. A map of China
is shown in Fig. 1.
China has a marked continental monsoonal climate
characterized by great variety. The summer monsoons
last from April to September. The warm and moist summer
monsoons last from April to September, bringing abundant
Figure 1. Map of China (Source: http://www.maps-of-china.com/china-country.shtml).
rainfall and high temperatures from the oceans, and little
difference in temperature between the south and the north.
China’s complex and varied climate results in a great
variety of temperature belts and dry and moist zones.
China has 50,000 rivers that cover catchment areas of at
least 100 square kilometers, and 1500 of them cover catch-
ment areas of more than 1000 square kilometers. Most of
the rivers flow from west to east to empty into the Pacific
Ocean. The main rivers include the Yangzi (Changjiang),
the Yellow River (Huanghe), Heilongjiang, the Pearl River,
Liaohe, Haihe, Qiantangjiang, and Lancang Rivers. At
6300 kilometers long, the Yangzi is the longest river in
China. The second longest is the Yellow River at 5464
kilometers. The Grand Canal from Hangzhou to Beijing
is a great water project of ancient China, 1794 kilo-
meters in length. It is the longest canal in the world
(Source: http://www.chinatour.com/countryinfo/country
info.htm#RIVER).
INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF WATER MANAGEMENT
IN CHINA
Legislative and Executive Structure
The agencies involved in WRM can be divided into
legislative and executive organizations. The legislative
structure is organized, in descending order, as follows:
• state level: state congress
• provincial level: provincial congress
 INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF WATER MANAGEMENT IN CHINA
• city level: municipal congress
• county level: county congress
The legislative structure in China is composed of four
levels, shown in Fig. 2.
The executive structure closely relevant to water
management is shown in Fig. 3.
Large water projects are managed by Basin Adminis-
trative Institutions that are subordinations of the MWR,
such as the Yellow River Water Conservation Commission
(YRCC). Medium and small water projects are managed
by provincial, municipal, and county water administrative
institutions, respectively, on the basis of ownership.
FUNCTIONS OF ADMINISTRATIVE INSTITUTIONS
In China, the water resource management organization
has traditionally been organized along narrow, subsectoral
Legislative
structure
State level State Congress
Provincial level Provincial Congress
City level Municipal Congress
County level County Congress
Figure 2. Legislative structure in China.
Table 1. The 14 Sectors Involved in Water Management in China
Index Sector
1 Ministry of water resources
2 National environmental protection bureau
3 Ministry of geomineral
4 Ministry of construction
5 Ministry of agriculture
6 Ministry of energy
7 National planning and development
commission
8 Ministry of sanitation
9 Ministry of finances
10 National scientific commission
11 National meteorological bureau
12 Ministry of transportation
13 Bureau of national land management
14 Ministry of forestry
485
Executive
State Gov.
Structure
SPDC MWR MF Provincial Gov.
YRCC
Provincial Bureau of WR
Provincial Bureau Municipal Bureau of WR
Municipal Bureau County Bureau of WR
County Bureau
Large M.&S.
Irrigation Irrigation
Districts Districts
Figure 3. Executive structure of water management.
lines. The national government determines the general
legislative and policy framework for water management.
The Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) is responsible
for the state water management and issues the national
water legislation and policies. Other ministries, such as
land and agriculture and electronic, are also involved in
water management.
The following competent departments under the State
Council and local government and their respective
functions based on the duty division of the State Council
compose the administrative structure of water resource
management in China (Table 1).
Ministry of Water Resources
The Ministry of water resources (MWR) is the main
department of water resources management under the
state council. Its functions are :
• to establish respective regulations of water resources
management on water law
Task
Surface water resource management
Water environmental protection
Underground water management
Construction of city water resource development and
protection
Agricultural water management
Water and electronic construction
Permits for conservancy projects
Monitor and protect drinking water
Permits for flood control finance capital
Management of water resource research
Prediction and management of precipitation
Management of inland navigation
Project management of protected basins
Protection of river basin forestry
486 INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF WATER MANAGEMENT IN CHINA
• to carry out a national comprehensive scientific
survey and investigation as well as an assessment
of water resources
• to draw up the overall planning for the main river
basins in China
• to formulate a long-term water supply plan on
national and regional scales
• to issue permits for water use
• to construct and maintain water projects such as
reservoirs, dikes, and weirs
• to manage the waterways, including rivers, lakes,
canals, and flood discharge areas
Generally, there is a department or bureau of water
resources under each level of local government which
is responsible for local water resources development
and management.
To strengthen the development and conservation of
water resources in the large rivers in China, the Yangtze,
Yellow, Pearl, Huai, Hai, Songhua, and Liao, there are
seven river basin commissions established under the
leadership of the MWR. These river basin commissions
as agencies of the MWR are responsible for the tasks
mentioned above in the basin concerned.
National Environmental Protection Agency
The National Environmental Protection Agency, the envi-
ronmental protection department of the State Council,
exercises unified supervision and management for the pre-
vention and control of water pollution. It is in charge of the
following responsibilities of water quality management:
• to establish the implementation rules and regulations
of water quality management on the basis of
prevention and control in the water pollution law
• to establish national water environmental qual-
ity standards
• to establish national pollutants discharge standards
in accordance with national water environmental
quality standards and the country’s economic and
technological conditions
• to amend national water environment quality
standards and national pollutants discharge
standards in due time
• to examine and approve the environmental impact
statement and inspect water pollution prevention
and control facilities of new projects, extensions, or
reconstruction projects which discharge pollutants
into waterbodies directly or indirectly
• to carry out the task of registration and application
for permits for water pollution discharge
• to carry out the task of payment for water
pollutant discharge
• to implement elimination and control of water
pollution within a certain period
• to exercise the punishment authority of warning and
fines on violators of prevention and control in the
water pollution law
• to be in charge of pesticide registration
Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources
The functions of the Ministry of Geology and Mineral
Resources are:
• general investigation and exploitation of groundwa-
ter
• assessment and unified planning for the development
and use of groundwater
• supervision and management of groundwater
Ministry of Agriculture
This ministry is in charge of the management and
conservation of farmland irrigation water and fish-
ery waterbodies.
Ministry of Public Health
• supervision and management of drinking water
quality in urban and rural areas
• formulation of sanitary standards of drinking water
• monitoring drinking water quality
• definition of sources of drinking water in accordance
with other competent departments
• participation in the management of protection zones
for drinking water
Ministry of Construction
Construction and management of the water supply in
urban, and rural areas and sewerage engineering as well
as domestic wastewater treatment plants in cities.
Ministry of Transportation
Supervision and management of water quality for
navigation and navigation ways in inland rivers.
In addition to the responsibility of the various
Ministries under the State Councils as mentioned above,
the responsibility for flood control belongs directly to the
State Councils and local governments at various levels as
well as the seven large river basin commissions.
LEGAL SYSTEM
In 1988, the Water Law of China was enacted and issued,
representing the legal basis for water resources develop-
ment and management. At present, other relevant laws or
regulations have been enacted for effective water pollution
control, water and soil conservation, the water-drawing
permit system, water conservation in urban areas, flood
control, safe management of dams, tariff collection, river-
bank management, navigation management, land use for
water works, and resident resettlement. A series of laws
and regulations related to water resources development
and management is also being drafted and processed for
enactment, concerning integrated use of water resources,
watershed management, flood control, water resources fee
collection and management, water pricing of water supply
projects, totaling more than 20 (see below).
 INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF WATER MANAGEMENT IN CHINA
List of Chinese Laws Related to WRM
Laws
• Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (DOE∗ :
1982, RA∗∗ : National People’s Congress)
• Forest Law of the People’s Republic of China (DOE:
1984, RA: National People’s Congress)
• Fishery Law of the People’s Republic of China (DOE:
1987, RA: National People’s Congress)
• Water Law of the People’s Republic of China (DOE:
1988, RA: National People’s Congress)
• Environmental Protection Law of the People’s
Republic of China (DOE: 1989, RA: National
People’s Congress)
• Water and Soil Conservation Law of the People’s
Republic of China (DOE: 1991, RA: National
People’s Congress)
• Mineral Resources Law of the People’s Republic of
China (DOE: 1994, RA: National People’s Congress)
• Water Pollution Control Law of the People’s Repub-
lic of China (DOE: 1996, RA: National Peo-
ple’s Congress)
• Flood Control Law of the People’s Republic of China
(DOE: 1997, RA: National People’s Congress)
• Land Administration Law of the People’s Republic of
China (DOE: 1998, RA: National People’s Congress)
Regulations and Policies
• Working Regulation of Soil Conservancy (DOE: 1982,
RA: State Council)
• Price Management Regulation (DOE: 1987, RA:
State Council)
• Law on Land Administration (DOE: 1987, RA:
State Council)
• Water Extraction Permit System Regulation (DOE:
1993, RA: State Council)
• Urban Water Supply Regulation (DOE: 1994, RA:
State Council)
• Method for Management of Irrigation Districts (DOE:
1981, RA: Ministry of Water Resources)
• Method for Construction and Management of Irriga-
tion and Drainage Projects (DOE: 1981, RA: Ministry
of Water Resources)
• Technical and Economical Index of Irrigation Man-
agement (DOE: 1996, RA: Ministry of Water
Resources)
• Industry Policies for the Water Sector (DOE: 1997,
RA: Ministry of Water Resources)
• Urban Water Conservation Management Regulation
(DOE: 1989, RA: Ministry of Construction)
∗
DOE: date of enactment;
∗∗
RA: responsible agency.
(Source: The government of the PRC and the Asian Development
Bank, 1999)
487
FINANCIAL SOURCES FOR WATER MANAGEMENT
IN CHINA
The main financial source for water management is
composed of three parts: the infrastructure fund of the
water conservancy construction fund, maintenance of
projects, and institutional management fees. The sources
of the infrastructure fund for water conservancy are:
• the infrastructure fund of the general budget
• the water conservancy construction fund
• loans from domestic banks and other financial
organizations
• funds from the sale of bonds
• loans from foreign financial organizations
• other sources approved by state governments
Both the sources for maintenance of projects and
institutional management fees are the general budget and
the water tariff. Spending of the infrastructure fund for
water conservancy is on flood control, drainage, irrigation,
water supply, hydropower, navigation, and others. The
Financing chart for water management of the YRCC is
shown in Fig. 4.
POLICY, LAWS AND REGULATIONS
The Central Government lays the utmost stress on the
Yellow River. A series of principles, policies, general
water laws, water administration regulations, and basin-
oriented water laws have been developed. They involve
the water administration of the Yellow River, the
management of water resources, management of a water
conservancy project and engineering affairs of the Yellow
River, management of flood control, water and soil
conservation, and protection of water resources. Examples
are given below.
Water Laws such as the ‘‘Water Laws of the People’s
Republic of China,’’ ‘‘Laws of Water Pollution
Prevention of the People’s Republic of China,’’ ‘‘Laws
of Water and Soil Conservation of the People’s
Republic of China,’’ and ‘‘Laws of Flood Prevention
of the People’s Republic of China’’
Laws and Regulations of Water Administration: ‘‘Work-
ing Regulations of Water and Soil Conservation,’’
‘‘Management Regulations of River Channels of the
People’s Republic of China,’’ ‘‘Management Means
of Ratification and Collecting of Water Fees for a
Water Conservancy Project,’’ ‘‘Regulations of Water
and Soil Conservation in Developing the Contigu-
ous Areas of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia,’’
‘‘Collecting and Management Means of Water Fees
for the Intake of the Irrigation Canal,’’ ‘‘Means of
Fee Collecting and Management of Sand Mining in
River Channels,’’ ‘‘Implementation Means of Permit
Regulation of Abstracting Water,’’ and ‘‘Means of
Control and Management of Water Quantity’’
488 WILL WATER SCARCITY LIMIT CHINA’S AGRICULTURAL POTENTIAL?

--- General budget

Financing
--- Investment
Chart State Gov. --- Maintain fee
--- Water tariff
SPDC MWR MF Provincial Gov.

YRCC
Provincial Bureau of WR PFB

Provincial Bureau Municipal Bureau of WR MFB

Muncipal Bureau County Bureau of WR CFB

County Bureau

Large M.&S. Water

Canal Irrigation Irrigation Users
Headwork & Water & Water
Project Supply Supply
Figure 4. Financial chart for water management of Disctricts Districts
the YRCC.

In addition, there are many local laws and regulations
relevant to the management and development of the
Yellow River. For example, ‘‘Management Means of Water
Conservancy Project of the Yellow River of Shandong
Province,’’ and ‘‘Regulations for Certain Problems in River
Channels and Flood Detention Areas in Henan Province.’’
READING LIST
General Information of the People’s Republic of China:
http://www.chinatoday.com/general/a.htm#POPU
WILL WATER SCARCITY LIMIT CHINA’S
AGRICULTURAL POTENTIAL?
BRYAN LOHMAR
Economic Research Service,
U.S. Department of Agriculture
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the
public domain in the United States of America.
Water shortages in important grain-producing regions
of China may seriously compromise China’s agricultural
production potential. Rapidly increasing industrial and
domestic water consumption and expanding irrigation
have drawn down groundwater tables and disrupted
surface-water deliveries. The problem is most severe
in north-central China, where most of China’s wheat
and cotton is produced and irrigation is essential to
maintaining high yields. The situation may worsen unless
effective water conservation policies can be put into
place rapidly.
China is responding to these concerns on several
levels. At the national level, the Ministry of Water
Resources began promoting water conservation through
various measures in the late 1990s, such as strengthening
the authority of National River Basin Commissions to
enforce water withdrawal limits and promoting irrigation
management reforms. Provincial and other local officials
are mediating conflicts between users to improve overall
water management. In villages, local water managers
and farmers are adopting water management reforms
and water-saving techniques, such as forming water user
associations and alternating wet-dry irrigation for rice. In
addition, reforms in the pricing and fee collection system
may provide farmers with better incentives to conserve
water. Pricing water deliveries to farms based on volume
could improve efficiency, but would be costly to monitor
since China has over 200 million farm households, each
tending several tiny plots of land.
As water for agriculture becomes more scarce, changes
in the pattern of crops are more likely than a reduction
in cultivated acreage. Wheat is most likely to suffer
declines, since wheat is irrigated in much of north
China and brings low returns to water. Production of
a variety of crops—corn, cotton, and high-value fruits
and vegetables—may increase as farmers switch from
irrigated wheat. High-value fruits and vegetables are often
more water intensive, but are also more suited to water-
saving irrigation technologies, such as drip irrigation and
greenhouse production.

The success of current efforts to encourage water
conservation in China will depend on a variety of factors.
Policy reforms will depend critically on the enforcement
of withdrawal limits both from surface-water systems and
from ground water. Also important is the extent to which
policies and local management practices motivate water
users and water managers to conserve water resources.
WATER AND COASTAL RESOURCES
U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID)
Every ecosystem, society, and individual on Earth depends
on water. Food security and human health, energy sup-
plies, and industrial production are all dependent on water
to a large degree. Water plays an important role in regulat-
ing global climate. It is essential for plants and wildlife and
ecosystems they inhabit. Water shortages and poor water
management can lead to loss of biodiversity and agricul-
tural production, increase in malnutrition and disease,
reduced economic growth, social instability, and conflict.
Reliable water supply has been a fundamental
component of the increased agricultural productivity
achieved by the green revolution. Irrigated agriculture
currently uses 70% of the world’s developed water
supplies. With increasing competition for water to meet
domestic and industrial needs, and for servicing essential
ecosystems, agriculture is faced with producing more food
with less water.
Water resources are not distributed uniformly across
the globe—nor are they necessarily located where the
largest concentrations of people reside. Demand for water
outstrips supply in a growing number of countries, and
the quality of that supply is rapidly declining: 450 million
people in 31 countries already face serious shortages
of water. These shortages occur almost exclusively in
developing countries, which are ill-equipped to adopt the
policy and technology measures needed to address the
crisis. By the year 2025, one-third of the world’s population
is expected to face severe and chronic water shortages.
Exacerbating the problem, human activities often
contaminate the world’s limited freshwater resources,
making them unavailable for further human use and
threatening the health of the lake, river, and wetland
ecosystems they support. Likewise, coastal and ocean
systems are under threat from the impact of a broad range
of human activities. Coastal systems are particularly
vulnerable to degradation from land-based activities,
climate change, over-fishing, and damage to coral reefs,
and they require active intervention to ensure their
continued survival.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has
made the preservation and environmentally sound devel-
opment of the world’s water resources a top priority. The
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the
public domain in the United States of America.
WATER USE CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY 489
Figure 1. USAID worked with local partners to improve
water resources management in Morocco’s Nakhla region of the
Rif Mountains.
Agency’s investments have helped improve access to safe
and adequate water supply and sanitation, improve irri-
gation technology, enhance natural environments, and
develop better institutional capacity for water resources
management in countries around the world (Fig. 1). This
has supported the Agency’s underlying goals of reduc-
ing conflict and improving the welfare of people across
the globe.
WATER USE CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY
MARIO O. BUENFIL-RODRIGUEZ
National University of Mexico
Cuernavaca, Morelos,
Mexico
WATER USE AND USERS ON GLOBAL AND REGIONAL
SCALES
Water has many uses and users, ranging from flu-
vial navigation to employing water as a component
in a chemical experiment. On a global level, the
four most water demanding human activities are
energy—hydroelectricity—generation, irrigation for agri-
culture, urban supply, and nonurban industrial produc-
tion. Each of them requires huge quantities of water;
and in its usage at least some water characteristic is
affected, which limits the options of the remaining users
to profit from that same water. This causes a competition
in which each user would like to have exclusive rights to
manage and exploit the resource. Hydroelectricity affects
the potential energy of water (topographic elevation), and
the other three basically affect water quality. There is
a fifth user, frequently neglected by humans, which has
the most ancient right to benefit from water, nature. The
natural world needs water in lakes, forest, woods, floods,
and climate regulation and has been greatly affected by
the human desire to conquer and transform and to grow
and expand.
Worldwide, the agricultural sector is the biggest
water consumer, although this balance is not equal in
every continent or country. For instance, nations that
have benign and frequent rains that allow good direct
agricultural production may have no need for irrigation;
others that are very dry or have an uneven distribution
490 WATER USE CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY
of water and rain require huge irrigation works to get
reasonable crop yields. Figure 1 depicts the distribution
of volumes among the three human uses that most affect
water quality.
WATER SCARCITY, CONFLICTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND
CONSCIOUSNESS
Water scarcity, which is rapidly growing in most countries,
creates serious conflicts, competition for water, and
evidently great unfairness in many cases. Figure 2 is a
clear and simple illustration of why there is growing
scarcity in most nations. Of course, its severity differs
widely, depending on regional natural resources and
demographic pressure. In general, there are growing crises
in the whole world.
Legal rules establishing some priorities for water
usage, or simply the legal support to historical privileges,
sometimes help in attenuating real or apparent conflicts
among users. Other regulatory mechanisms are water
markets, where users can trade their water rights to
other users. This last has advantages, but also great
disadvantages when the market and the world economy
(usually a totally artificial issue subject to political fancies
and fashions) send erroneous signals about the value
of things.
Competition among users is not absolute; water used
upstream can later be freely used downstream, provided
the residual water discharges from the first consumers are
not dangerous enough to inhibit their later usage. Anyway,
there always is some technological possibility of treating
and reusing water. If there were enough money to apply
technology, conflicts would be eliminated, but technology
is costly, and most of the world is poor. This is worsened
by the low value given to water by traditional economies
and by the unequal competition for globalized trade in
agricultural products. So unfairness and crises still have
a long way to go.
An often misconceived economics paradigm suggests
that water should be used where it renders the greater
rate of return. This is a kind of taboo to be seriously
questioned and reviewed because it leads us to accept the
Global annual water withdrawal by sector, 1900-2000
5,000
4,500
4,000
Cubic kilometers
3,500 Municipal
3,000 Industrial
2,500
2,000
1,500 Agricultural
1,000
500
0 or services visited, and in general by every industry in the
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Figure 1. Rising water use. Global annual water withdrawal by
sector, 1900–2000 (from Ref. 1).
World renewable fresh water per capita
25,000.00
20,000.00
15,000.00
10,000.00
5,000.00
Cu meters
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Figure 2. A century of changes in water availability: clear signs
of scarcity and conflicts.
idea that uses in services such as tourism, electronics,
and industry in general are more important than use in
agriculture and food. A better approach is to accept that
the latter use is greatly undervalued by the market and the
others are exaggeratedly overvalued. The same situation
occurs in ecological water use.
The mid-twentieth century vision of dealing with water
needs and scarcity problems was to increase the supply
by means of big dams and similar huge engineering
works. They have proved insufficient and merely made
the demand disproportionately grow, so the vision for this
century must be radically changed. The approach now
must be ‘‘water demand management’’ respecting natural
limits and boundaries. Scarcity must be directly dealt
with, by conservation and ‘‘efficient water use.’’ These
options also have a technological component but rather
rest mainly on human habits and consciousness. They
are radically different from options that rely on huge
engineering works for water transfers and treatment.
WATER USERS AND DEMAND ON AN URBAN SCALE
Water users in cities are mostly the people who live
and work there; they can be represented by existing
houses, buildings, shops, offices, parks, hotels, schools,
and factories. There are many types of cities and ample
variations in these components. Tourist and recreational
cities have lots of hotels and almost no factories; in
industrial cities, it is the opposite. Housing for families
usually is the greater component in any city and evidently
the sector demanding more water.
The water demand in a city can be expressed in
liters/person/day; it is comprised of the water used directly
or indirectly by an average citizen and the leaks in the
piping network. People use water directly in their houses,
but also in their jobs or at school, and indirectly by others
serving them, as in restaurants where they eat, by shops
city. Leaks unavoidably occur so the water may arrive in
the consumption area. The previous reasons explain why if
the average in-house consumption is 300 L/capita/day, the
full demand may be around 500 L/capita/day. Figure 3
 WATER USE CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY 491

Average daily domestic water use (per capita)

500

400

Litres of water
per person
per day
300

382
litres 343
200 litres

250
litres
100 200 150
litres 135
litres
litres

Figure 3. House water consump-

United States Canada Italy Sweden France Israel tion in some countries (from Ref. 2).

contrasts some international statistics about in-house
consumption. There are big variations, of course, even
within a nation and even among different zones and
persons in the same city. Figure 4 is a sample of in-house
water usage distribution.
CONSERVATION OF WATER AND OTHER RESOURCES
Water emphasizes many conflicts and scarcities, although
water may not be the real issue considering that there
is plenty of water on our planet. Water quantities may
not be the problem, but its quality, or its location
in time or in space. Infrastructure, investments, and
technology are always essential for actions such as water
treatment, storage for other seasons, or transport to other
places. Therefore, the real restrictions may not be water
Kitchen and drinking
10%
Laundry
20% Toilet flushing
30%
Cleaning 5%
Showers and baths
35%
volumes or qualities, but those regarding energy resources,
financial sources, and managerial capabilities to transport
it or to preserve its purity. Energy is one important
inhibitor; if it were freely available, water could be pumped
from far away flood zones to deserts (this does not consider
possible negative ecological impacts).
When institutions request people to save water, they
do not merely think of saving water volumes, but rather
of saving energy expenditures by eliminating the need
for larger pipes and, mainly, by diminishing pollution
caused by the water usage and discharge. Many propose
conservation plans, so the volume saved is used to support
demographic and demand growth. In this case, there are
no real savings and compensations for previous damage
and overexploitation, but merely variants of the twentieth
century backing of human expansionism.
The need for conservation and for ‘‘efficient water
use’’ has a much broader scope than merely using less
water. The real purposes and issues may be protecting
the whole environment, our economy, and the quality of
life of future generations. They can have a rather dark
side when used as a political and demagogic argument
simply to maintain inertias for growth and expansionism,
which require less money investments but possibly greater
human and environmental sacrifices and discomforts that
are not taken into account.
MEASURING THE EFFICIENCY OF URBAN SERVICES

Even in something as specific as public water supply,

Water use in the home
Figure 4. Typical household water use in Canada (from Ref. 2).
efficiency has many angles and goals. Simultaneously, it
is important to save water volumes, to avoid pollution,
to diminish unnecessary expenditures, and to distribute
water more fairly among different users. For instance, if
there were an optimal amount of water to be given to
492 WATER USE CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY
people, considering health, welfare, and other aspects (for
example, 150 L/person/day), anything above or below such
a quantity could be considered inefficient.
One common type of inefficiency occurs in water
transportation because there always is some degree of
leakage caused by breaks in the piping system. This
efficiency is computed as the ratio of the volume delivered
to clients, measured by micrometers, divided by the total
volume extracted from the water source. The operating or
‘‘revenue efficiency’’ is the total money collected through
bills paid by clients, compared to the total amount in issued
bills. The ‘‘unaccounted for water’’ (UFW) indicator is a
measure of the overall inefficiency of a water supplier,
considering physical and commercial losses. Another
strategic indicator is represented by the ratio of total
expenditures to total income during a certain period.
Yet another important way to assess performance is by
comparing the initial water quality at the source against
the quality returned after discharge. An increasing degree
of recycled or reused water within a city evidently is also
a desirable way to demonstrate improvements.
It would be extremely expensive and totally impractical
to have a system without inefficiencies, that is, 100%
efficiency in all aspects. What is done by developed
water utilities is to work simultaneously using an ample
set of ‘‘performance indicators’’ and to apply several
benchmarking rules and comparisons with other utilities,
as suggested by the International Water Association (3).
Just as any water utility may have various types of
efficiencies to be confronted routinely and evaluated, the
private home owner, or any factory or hotel manager, may
have many parameters by which to assess performance
in water usage and its impact on the environment. Water
audits (Fig. 5) are appropriate as systematic procedures
for assessing performance and to detecting failures as well
as opportunities for improvement.
(7) Rehabilitate
(6) Environmental
education campaigns
Figure 5. Seven stages for water-saving
programs in buildings.
CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY, THE NEED AND THE
HOW
The need for conservation and efficient water use comes
from scarcity and competition for the resource, each time
more evident in many places. In this regard, many national
and international institutions advise how to save water.
The most classical are to take shorter showers, not to
leave the faucet open while shaving, or changing the old
toilet for one of newer design (maximum 6 liters/flush, see
Fig. 6). There are lots of these recommendations, which
are not bad at all, but maybe at sites of severe crises and
scarcities, recommendations should be even more daring
and definitive, to attack the roots of problems, not their
symptoms. Some of these newer counsels are: use dry
latrines instead of toilets, shower just once a week, and
use perfumes; be a vegetarian and not a meat eater (meat
production demands much more water than vegetables);
family planning; bicycles instead of cars; reuse, recycle,
rethink; charge ‘‘green taxes’’ for many environmentally
damaging products or packaging.
The importance of systematically assessing and mea-
suring efficiency lies in finding improvement opportuni-
ties. Performance or efficiency indicators should be com-
pared against reference values to detect failures, changes,
and trends. The reference standards should be carefully
discussed and selected, because if not, some incongruence
and evident mistakes may occur. One pitiable flaw would
be to report efficiencies greater than 100% when abstain-
ing from using water in certain industrial process or
eliminating a superfluous water need. For instance, when
comparing the change to dry latrines after using tradi-
tional toilets, it evidently does not mean infinite efficiency,
although doubtlessly it is great environmental progress.
Excessive, wasteful, and polluting water uses should
be restricted. However, how these restrictions should be
(1) Know your
building
(2)
Meters
Water audit and (3) Inventory of
efficient water divices and
use program sources
(manager's responsibilities)
(4) Analysis
(5) Maintenance and program
and supervision proposal

Figure 6. Toilet bowl: friend and foe. The most frequent cause of
water consumption, leakages, and pollution.
attained is an interesting issue. The least desirable options
would be laws for direct prohibitions. There are better
choices, for instance, measuring water and contaminant
loads in discharges and applying tariffs high enough to
discourage those uses and encourage the search for better
technologies and processes.
Besides metering and tariffs, there are many programs
and actions that any water supplier must consider, which
contribute to efficient water use in a city. Among them
are user education and water culture, macrometering,
information systems, client census, demand forecasting,
automation of operations, leak detection and control,
materials testing and quality control, employee train-
ing, improved maintenance procedures, bylaws, aquifer
recharge, rain harvesting, water audits, improved domes-
tic water-saving devices, water treatment, water reuse
and recycling, and desalination. Each of these programs
and tasks has different degrees of importance depending
on the local conditions, and together make up a desirable
set of simultaneous actions to be considered and used.
This article supplies only a list of these programs
without further details. Each one deserves a specific
and detailed explanation, which hopefully may appear
in other sections of this Encyclopedia of Water. All of them
are important and strategic for efficient water use and
resource conservation.
WATER USE CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY 493
LIMITS TO GROWTH AND EFFICIENCY
The options for solving water scarcity, along with the
crises and conflicts it causes, rest mainly in the social,
moral, and economic realm, rather than in the technical
one, although at first glance, it may appear the other way.
Most likely, technology can always find a way to
improve efficiency, but also it implies that costs some-
times are not apparent. Solutions often have clear and
immediate economic components but often also may have
vague, but possibly important, environmental, quality of
life, and long-term consequences. Unfortunately, tradi-
tional economic and technical models merely deprecate
and do not consider such impacts because they do not
know how to deal with them.
Technological options for improving water efficiency
sometimes are clear and simple, and can be adopted
without much questioning and doubt; however, in many
other cases, it is important to have broader vision. Here is
a brief list of arguments to reflect on and consider:
— Efficient water use is not simply ‘‘using less
water.’’ There are many other options for managing
demands. Reuse is an important one.
— Efficient water use depends more on the effi-
cient use of resources other than merely on water
saved. Energy, money, technology, people’s will-
ingness, forests, and climate are some of these
other resources.
— Urban water scarcity is not a water availability
problem. It may be a symptom and reflection of other
problems so that, when confronted, the scarcity
issue will be immediately relieved.
— Scarcity problems could be ‘‘easily’’ solved by
stopping consumption and population growth.
— Urban water scarcity is a ‘‘moral and ecological
problem,’’ not a technical one.
— More severe and urgent laws are required for
sites suffering extreme scarcity, particularly, where
aquifers present continued water table drawdown.
— Scarcity is referred to as a problem of shortages
but is a situation of ‘‘longages’’ (excesses) of bad
habits and population or industrial growth in
inappropriate zones.
Technology can succeed in allocating population
increases by using and reusing the fixed available water
volume more intensely. However, this style of technology
application merely justifies expanding the coverage,
without a clear improvement in the quality of life. Reuse,
treatment, and desalination, are desirable options up to
certain limits, but should never be used indiscriminately to
justify further growth. On the contrary, they must promote
diminishing human impacts to make more natural space
available. Theoretically, it is possible to have houses or
factories with zero water discharge, and almost zero water
demand by intensive treatment and reuse.
Water desalination is an interesting option for increas-
ing the supply of water. It has a history as ancient as
the hydrologic cycle, its basis. Humans have used desali-
nation techniques for survival on long ocean journeys
494 WATER USE CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY
and for supplying isolated islands for centuries. Nowa-
days, desalination processes use reverse osmosis that
demands huge energy input, which mainly comes from
thermoelectric power plants; so the process is equivalent
to exchanging petrol for water. In that sense, besides
being a rather expensive choice not for every one, it is not
a sustainable option because fossil energy is a nonrenew-
able resource. It would be more desirable and sound to
research and promote technology using solar energy for
these processes.
Now that the failures and flaws of traditional economic
models that cheer growth and expansion are evident,
there is need for a new paradigm. Efficient water use
and conservation should be seen as a route to reach
this new paradigm, not as a means for reinforcing the
old one.
When continuous, long lasting, and growing sacrifices
or ‘‘improved efficiencies’’ are the alternative to make
available water to increasing populations and when
there is not a clear end to these situations, serious
questioning must be done about the risk of failure of
this route (plagued by decreasing safety levels) and of the
worth of such sacrifices. It could be that opting to limit
growth and technology would be more appropriate, sound,
and simple.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Hinrichsen, D., Robey, B., and Upadhyay, U.D. (1997). Solu-
tions for a Water-Short World. Populations Reports, Series M,
No. 14 Baltimore, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health,
Population Information Program, http://www.jhuccp.org/pr/
m14edsum.stm.
2. Environment Canada (1998). The Management of Water.
National Water Issues Branch, Environment Canada, http:
//www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/manage/e manag.htm.
3. Alegre, H., Baptista, J. M., Hirner, W., and Cabrera, E.
(2000). The IWA system of performance indicators for
water supply services International Water Association
IWA, manual of best practices (performance indicators).
http://www.iwapublishing.com/template.cfm?name=isbn1900
222272.
READING LIST
Arreguı́n, C. F. and Buenfil, R. M. (1997). 64 Recomenda-
ciones Para Ahorrar Agua, IMTA- Ministerio de Desar-
rollo Económico de Colombia. http://www.cepis.ops-oms.org/
bvsadiaa/e/noticias/colombia/agua.pdf.
Asian Development Bank (McIntosh A., Yñiguez, C.) (1997).
Second Water Utilities Data Book. Asian and Pacific Region.
Asian Development Bank.
Barker, P. (1977). Cost-Based Water Prices, 23 WEDC conference,
Durban South Africa, http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cv/
wedc/papers/23/groupf/barker.pdf.
Brown, L. (2001). Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the
Earth, Earth Policy Institute, http://www.earth-policy.org./
Books/Eco contents.htm.
Brown, L. (2001). Worsening Water Shortages Threaten China’s
Food Security. Earth Policy Institute, http://www.earth-
policy.org/.
Buenfil, M. (2001). Selfishness and Efficiency (in Water
Use), 4th Information Water Summit, Panama. http://www.
waterweb.org/wis/wis4/cd/Buenfil-S&E%20water%20use
.pdf.
Environment Canada (1993). Manual for Conducting Water
Audits and Developing Water Efficiency Programs at Fed-
eral Facilities. Environment Canada, water issues branch,
http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/info/pubs/manual/e contnt.
htm.
EPA. (2001). Residential Water Conservation Techniques.
Environmental Protection Agency, USA, http://www.epa.gov/
seahome/watcon.html.
Gleick, P.H. (2000). The Changing Water Paradigm. A Look at
Twenty-First Century Water Resources Development. Interna-
tional Water Resources Association. http://www.iwra.siu.edu/
win/win2000/win03-00/gleick.pdf.
Gleick, P.H. (2001). Making every drop count. Sci. Am. http:
//www.scientificamerican.com/2001/0201issue/0201gleick.htm.
Hardin, G. (1968). Tragedy of the commons. Science http://www.
sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/162/3859/1243.
Hawken, P., Lovins, A., and Lovins, L. H. Aqueous Solu-
tions, Chapter 11 of Book ‘‘Natural Capitalism: Creating
the Next Industrial Revolution. Rocky Mountain Institute
http://www.natcap.org, http://www.natcap.org/images/other/
NCchapter11.pdf, http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid172.php,
http://www.rmi.org/images/other/W-AqueousSol.pdf.
Hinrichsen, D., Robey, B., and Upadhyay, U.D. (1997). Solutions
for a Water-Short World. Population Reports, Series M, No.
14. Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, Popula-
tion Information Program, http://www.jhuccp.org/pr/m14edsum
.stm.
James, W. (1999). Urban Water Systems. Guelph University,
Canada. http://www.eos.uoguelph.ca/webfiles/james/homepage
/Teaching/661/wj661Modules.html.
Mello, E.J. (2001). Conservação e Medição da Água various
links and articles related to metering and water conservation,
http://www.geocities.com/hidrometro/.
Postel, S. (1984). Water: Rethinking Management in an Age of
Scarcity, Worldwatch Institute paper 62, Worldwatch Institute,
Washington USA, http://isbn.nu/0916468623.
Postel, S. (1999). Pillar of Sand. Can the Irrigation Miracle Last?
WorldWatch book.
Reimold, R.L. and Bloetscher, F. (1996). An innovative opportu-
nity for water reuse. Fla. Water Resour. J. http://www.fwrj.com/
articles/9607.pdf.
Vickers, A. (2000). Handbook of Water Use and Conser-
vation. California Urban Water Conservation Council,
http://www.cuwcc.com/publications/action.lasso?-database
=cuwcc catalog&-layout=CDML&-response=detailed results.
html&-recordID=33056&-search.
WaterMagazine (Cayford, Joel). (2002). Water services—regula-
tion & pricing—article links. Water Mag. New Zealand,
http://www.watermagazine.com/secure/pricereg.htm.
World Bank (Yepes, G. and Dianderas, A.). (1996). Water and
Waste Water Utilities Indicators 2nd Edition, Water and
Sanitation Division, TWUWS, The World Bank, http://www.
worldbank.org/html/fpd/water/pdf/indicators.pdf.

CONSERVATION OF WATER
MUKAND SINGH BABEL
Asian Institute of Technology
Pathumthani, Thailand
Water is the main component of the natural ecosystem
and an essential element for human life. It is also
fundamental for the social and economic development of
a country. Water is needed for drinking, washing, and
sanitation at personal, domestic, and municipal levels;
for agricultural purposes such as irrigation, livestock,
and fisheries; for industrial development, navigation,
hydropower production, recreation, and so on. In addition,
there is increased realization that water is needed for
maintaining ecosystems.
The higher rate of population growth associated with
several anthropogenic activities leading to increased
pollution of water resources has augmented critical
situations worldwide related to scarcity of water resources
either in quantity or quality to meet the vital necessities
of humankind.
When the ratio of water availability to demand exceeds
certain limits, the stress on resources becomes noticeable,
and the conflicts among users intensify and increase in
frequency. A region that have water availability of about
1700 m3 per capita/year faces periodic water scarcity,
and this is considered a warning if the population
continues to grow. Below this limit, ‘‘water stress’’ is
periodic. If this limit is even lower, about 1000 m3 per
capita/year, the region is under ‘‘chronic water scarcity.’’
Economic development, well-being, and health are affected
at these levels. The situation is ‘‘extremely scarce’’ if the
per capita availability is below 500 m3 per year. Many
countries that used to have plentiful water resources are
facing water scarcity, that is likely to be aggravated in
coming years.
On one hand, there is the problem of scarce availability
in relation to increasing demands; on the other hand,
there is poor resources management and wasteful and
inefficient use of freshwater. To address these water
problems, it is necessary to control the overuse and
pollution of water resources by improved management
of water resources through conservation and water saving
concepts and practices.
The main water-use sectors are agricultural, industrial,
and domestic. At a global level, agricultural water use
accounts for 70%, industrial use 21%, and 9% for domestic
consumption. Though industrial water demand is much
smaller than agricultural demand in low- and middle-
income countries, it exceeds domestic and agricultural
demands in developed and industrialized countries, as
shown in Table 1.
Water is wasted nearly everywhere; there is great
potential for better conservation and management, no
matter how water is used. The term water conservation
is associated mainly with the policy, managerial measure,
or user practice aiming at conserving or preserving water
resources and taking care of the degradation of water
resources; water saving aims to limit or control water
demand and avoid wastage and misuse. Both perspectives
CONSERVATION OF WATER 495
Table 1. Distribution of Water Usea
Agricultural Industrial Domestic
Use Use Use
World 70% 22% 8%
High-income countries 30% 59% 11%
Low- and middle-income 82% 10% 4%
countries
a
Reference 1.
are complementary and interrelated in managing scarce
water resources.
AGRICULTURAL SECTOR
Most water is used for agriculture (Table 1). Efficient
agricultural water management, therefore, is a major
conservation option. It is common to find that more
than half of the water drawn from a source does
not even reach the fields being irrigated. Generally,
less than 40% system efficiency prevails in many
irrigation schemes. Such an appalling situation should
be tackled by pursuing better systems of farm water
management—improving irrigation efficiency by reducing
water distribution losses, changing cropping patterns,
improving irrigation scheduling, and adopting irrigation
efficient technologies. Deterioration of irrigation network
systems due to lack of proper and adequate maintenance
are the main causes of increased losses through leakage
and percolation. Rehabilitation of existing irrigation
schemes is, therefore, required to alleviate the situation.
It is also equally important, when implementing new
irrigation schemes, to give sufficient attention to adequate
operation and maintenance. Active participation by
the users is vital for sustainable management of
irrigation systems. Several governments are in the process
of transferring management functions to farmers or
developing joint (government agency and water users)
management systems.
In gravity irrigation methods such as basin, furrow,
and flooding, a large quantity of water is lost by leaching
down the root zone and as runoff at the end of the
field. Land leveling, along with other technical measures,
provides conditions for reducing the advance time and
water volumes required to complete the advance, for
better water distribution as well as application efficiencies.
For moderate to high infiltration soils, where system
automation is possible, water can also be saved by adopting
surge irrigation which consists of intermittent cycling of
water applied to furrows and borders, thereby producing
changes in the soil surface conditions which favor a faster
advance of water.
Sprinkler irrigation methods have higher system
efficiencies than gravity irrigation. Water in sprinkler
irrigation can be conserved by improving the distribution
uniformity—optimizing the overlapping of sprinkler jets,
minimizing discharge variations, minimizing wind drift
and evaporation losses, maximizing infiltration of applied
water, and avoiding surface runoff losses. Microirrigation
has the least loss of water among irrigation methods. It
496 CONSERVATION OF WATER

can be classified in two general categories: drip or trickle quantity, quality, and biological aspects of both ground-
irrigation, where water is slowly applied through small water and surface waters; the sustainability of irrigation
emitter openings from plastic tubing; and microspray and drainage schemes; and environmental sustainabil-
irrigation or microsprinkling, in which water is sprayed ity. Water demand management necessitates establish-
over the soil surface. Water conservation in microirrigation ing structural incentives, regulations, and restrictions
can be improved by using a single drip line for a that help to bring about efficient water use in irri-
double crop row, using microsprayers in high infiltration gation by farmers while encouraging innovations and
soils, adjusting the duration and timing to soil and saving technology.
crop characteristics, controlling pressure and discharge
variations, adopting automation and fertigation, and
INDUSTRIAL SECTOR
chemigation (application of fertilizers and herbicides or
other chemicals with irrigation water).
Water is used in industries in power generation, tempera-
Water conservation measures are also very important
ture control, manufacturing processes, and washing. The
in dry-land agriculture because crop growth depends
principal water users in industry are thermal and atomic
solely on the moisture retained by the soil from
power generation, chemistry and petroleum chemistry,
rain. Conservation measures in rain-fed agriculture
ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, wood pulp and paper
are carried out mainly by appropriate crop and soil
industry, and machine building.
management practices. Crop management techniques
The quantity and quality of water required by industry
consist of managing crop risks, such as selecting the
vary with the type of industry and the industrial processes.
cropping pattern to suit the available seasonal rainfall;
The effluents produced by the industry are also of
controlling water stress, such as adaptation of crop
different qualities, which may require different treatment
rotation to environmental constraints, including covered
processes. Water recycling and reuse are the main water
fallow for grazing; and water conservation cropping
saving strategies in industry. Industrial water recycling,
techniques, such as by employing conservation tillage,
which began on a large scale in the 1970s to help cope with
windbreaks to decrease wind impacts on evaporation,
antipollution regulations, has also become an effective
etc. Soil management practices are broadly categorized
conservation measure. American steelmakers, which once
as runoff control, such as contour tillage, using mulches,
consumed 280 tons of water for every ton of steel made,
furrow diking, etc; improvement of soil infiltration rates,
later needed to use only 14 tons of new water; the rest
such as application of organic matters and mulching;
was recycled. Similarly, in Japan and western Germany,
increasing soil water storage holding capacity, such as
for example, a large increase in the number of factories
deep tillage; control of evaporation from soil by crop
has been accommodated without a considerable increase
residue and mulching; runoff control in sloping areas
in total industrial water use (2).
by terracing, contour ridges, and strip cropping; and
The most common conservation measures in industrial
water harvesting.
water use are water-use monitoring, recycling, reuse,
Reuse of water, such as using wastewater (graywater)
cooling tower use, equipment modification, and employee
for agriculture, is considered a conservation option to
education. Of all industrial water use, cooling water
increase the availability of water either currently or in the
accounts for a very large share. Replacement of once-
future. More than 500,000 ha of farmland are currently
through cooling processes with recirculating systems can
being irrigated with treated wastewater in 15 countries
provide some of the largest water savings. Often, cooling
around the world. However, the use of such wastewater,
water can be reused for landscape irrigation and cleanup.
if not treated well, may threaten the public health by
The physical and chemical properties of water may change
spreading bacteria, viruses, and parasites. For example,
after use, requiring some simple treatment before being
the outbreak of typhoid fever in the mid-1980s in Santiago,
used again. Treated water can be reused for heating
Chile, was attributed to the use of wastewater, with
processes; water from washing raw food material can be
unsatisfactory sanitary quality, to irrigate 16,000 ha of
reused for cooling, heating, or indoor washing.
horticultural farms (2).
The major challenge to water planners and managers
is that physical availability of water is fixed, but demand DOMESTIC SECTOR
will increase to cater to the needs of an ever increasing
population. The tendency today is to shift from water poli- In urban areas, water supplies are used in households
cies based on water supply management to those based on and for services such as city washing, fire fighting, and
demand management. Agricultural water demand man- maintenance of swimming pools or recreational parks and
agement consists of reducing crop irrigation requirements, lakes. A considerable amount of water is lost by leakage
adopting irrigation practices that lead to higher irriga- in the water distribution network. The unaccounted for
tion performance and water saving, controlling system water (UFW) comprises system leakages, illegal tapping,
water losses, and increasing yields and income per unit theft, incorrect meter reading and billing, and overflowing
of water used. It works with agronomic, economic, and reservoirs. System monitoring and metering should be
technical management decisions for decreasing irriga- done in appropriate intervals to obtain information on
tion water demand and recovering the costs of irrigation the system state variables to prepare plans for water
water supply. An agricultural water demand manage- conservation measures as well as for estimating water
ment program should consider the interaction between the losses, their location, and causes so as to prepare for

appropriate corrective measures. Typical water losses as
a percent of water supplied are 8–24% for developed
countries, 15–24% for newly industrialized countries; for
developing countries, it is 25–45%, as surveyed in 1991
by the International Water Services Association (IWSA).
Examples of typical water losses for developing countries
are well portrayed by Arequipa, Peru, with a 45% loss,
and Hanoi, Vietnam, with a 68% loss (43% nonbilled, 20%
leakage, 5% company use) (3). Between 20 to 40% of the
supply was UFW in Indian cities and towns (4). On the
municipal level, cities have saved from 10 to 25% of their
water by repairing leaky pipes (2). Preventive as well as
corrective maintenance can play a major role in water
conservation.
Water pricing and billing can induce water saving
habits in users if price increases with the volume used,
particularly when the differential increases in price are
large enough to encourage water savings. The reclamation
of wastewater for nonpotable purposes has become a
proven measure to help meet increasing demand. Where
extreme water scarcity exists, a feasible but expensive
solution is to have a dual distribution network for high
quality water which is needed for uses such as drinking,
food preparation, and bathing, and for treated reusable
water which can be used for landscape and recreational
ground irrigation, toilet flushing, and floor washing.
Such reusable water can be available from, for example,
treated urban drainage stormwater. Such examples of
dual systems can be found in Australia, Hong Kong
(China), Japan and the United States, to name a few.
In Japanese cities, for example, such reclaimed water
finds greatest use in toilet flushing (40%), compared with
only 15% for irrigation in urban landscaping; in Hong
Kong, seawater has been used extensively for decades for
toilet flushing in commercial and multifamily residential
buildings. However, a dual distribution system is difficult
to implement because it requires very large investments
from the public sector as well on the part of users
in their homes. Financial incentives such as subsidies
may be required for such investments in additional
infrastructures and to implement other high-cost water
conservation technologies.
In the domestic sector, most water is used for gardens
and for bathrooms and toilets. In a typical household
that has outdoor facilities, nearly 50% of the water is
used for gardening; of the total indoor water use, 33% is
spent on showers and bath, 24% for toilet flushing, and
22% in laundry (5). Water saving plumbing fixtures and
appliances are cost-effective and provide permanent long-
term economic advantages. Replacing traditional toilets
which use 16 to 20 liters per flush with low-flow toilets
(such as 6 liters per flush) or placing containers or bags
filled with water in the tanks of large volume toilets can
save a lot of water by reducing their capacity. A minor
repair to control toilet leaks can be of immense help in
conserving water. These leaks can be detected by adding
a few drops of food coloring to water in the toilet tank
and observing if the colored water appears in the bowl.
Showers take second place in domestic water demand.
Reducing the time for showering and preferring showers
to immersion bathing can be very effective in conserving
CONSERVATION OF WATER 497
water. Low-flow showerheads and faucet aerators save
water as well as energy used to heat water (where warm
water is needed).
When washing clothes and dishes by machine, operat-
ing clothes washers and dishwashers with full loads can
economize on water used. Outside the home, water can be
saved by avoiding unnecessary spillage of water. Simple
practices like using a broom, not a hose, to clean driveways,
steps, and sidewalks; washing the car with water from a
bucket; and irrigating plants either in the early morning
or the late evening can save a lot of water. In landscap-
ing, use of native plants that require less care and water
than ornamental varieties can save a large quantity of
water. While mowing the lawn, the lawn mower should
be adjusted to a higher setting to provide natural ground
shade and to promote water retention by the soil. In swim-
ming pools, water can be continuously recycled, clarified,
and purified by means of portable equipment and appro-
priate chemicals. Evaporation losses can be minimized by
covering the pool when not in use.
INSTITUTIONAL MEASURES
Educational programs are very important in instilling
water conservation awareness among users. Conservation
literature can be distributed along with regular bills to
water users. Local service organizations can also play a
big role in disseminating water conservation information.
An excellent time to provide this information to customers
is just prior to the summer season when demand normally
peaks. Local newspaper articles, radio and television
public service announcements, information centers at local
fairs and shopping centers, etc. can also be used to promote
conservation awareness and education. Local schools can
be a very good place to offer conservation knowledge to
young people by means of water education activities such
as water conservation posters, slogans, essays, or exhibit
contests for children. High-use facilities such as schools
and colleges, hospitals and institutions, country clubs,
and health clubs are appropriate places to initiate water
conservation programs.
Water laws provide a general framework for water use
and conservation and are complemented by regulations.
They can help water conservation by restricting excessive
water use, for example, establishing standards for indoor
plumbing fixtures, maximum volumes per flush in toilets,
or making it compulsory for filtering, treating, and
recycling the water in swimming pools, etc. The provision
of incentive and penalties helps in enforcement of
regulations as well as in the adoption of water saving
technology by customers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. World Bank. (2001). World Development Indicators (WDI).
Washington, DC, Available in CD-Rom.
2. Beekman, G.B. (1998). Water conservation, recycling and
reuse. Water Resour. Dev. 14(3): 353–364.
3. WHO. (2001). Leakage Management and Control—A Best
Practice Training Manual. http://www.who.int/docstore/water
sanitation health/leakage/begin.html.
498 THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES: PLANNERS, POLITICIANS, AND CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION
4. Venugopalan, V. (1997). Water conservation methods. Water
Supply 15(1): 51–54.
5. Stanger, G. (2000). Water conservation: what can we do?
In: Water Management, Purification & Conservation in Arid
Climates. M.F.A. Goosen and W.H. Shayya (Eds.). Technomics,
Lancaster, PA.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN WATER
RESOURCES: PLANNERS, POLITICIANS, AND
CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION
MARTIN REUSS
Office of History Headquarters
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
To understand the development of American water
resources, one must first look at American political and
social values and at American governmental institutions.
Even a cursory examination shows the lasting influence of
decisions and attitudes molded as the country took its first
hesitant steps as a republic. Historian Joyce Appleby has
argued that the first generation of Americans bequeathed
‘‘open opportunity, an unfettered spirit of inquiry, [and]
personal liberty’’ to future generations—qualities, we
might note, that often introduce an element of uncertainty
into public administration. But if we extend the analysis
a bit, we might not only gain an appreciation of the
many challenges facing water resource developers, but
also illuminate a fundamental question facing democratic
nations: To what extent should human liberty be
constrained in order to provide and manage a human
necessity—water?
Beyond Appleby’s observations, one notes at least per-
vasive elements woven into American political behavior.
The first, the inescapable, element is distrust of powerful
governments. Power corrupts, the first Americans agreed
without much hesitation, and the challenge was how to
minimize that corruption, how to ensure that good men
will not be enticed to do evil, and how to disperse power
to minimize oppression. Loudly over the years, Americans
continue to proclaim their distrust of big government; even
popular presidents generate skepticism when they appear
to reach for increased power and authority.
Only as a last resort, and then with resignation, not
enthusiasm, as during the Great Depression, do Americans
turn to the national government to solve their problems.
The result can be truly impressive: Grand Coulee and
Bonneville dams, locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi,
the California Central Valley Project, and the Los Angeles
flood control system all came out of depression-era politics,
but arguably all are aberrations in the story of American
water resources.
The second element, almost as pervasive as the first,
is that power and liberty are fundamental antagonists.
The dispersion of power among the three branches of
government purposely sets power at war with itself rather
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the
public domain in the United States of America.
than with ‘‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’’ Each
branch would be allowed only sufficient power to discharge
official duties, and a system of checks and balances would
guard against abuse. Recoiling from British monarchism,
the constitutional drafters took special care to try to
prevent executive branch intrusions into the duties of the
other two branches. This was a system that, regardless
of its merits, made implementation of rational planning
enormously difficult, as water developers soon appreciated.
Political attitudes one thing; government structure
was another. And here the Founding Fathers developed
a system that guaranteed further complications. They
fashioned a republican form of governments within the
government. A century later, young political scientist
Woodrow Wilson thought that this structure posed the
principal challenge to American administration. Few
water resource planners would disagree. Republican
government, it must be remembered, began in the
states, not in the new national capital; delegates to the
Continental Congress delayed business so they could go
home and participate in state constitutional conventions.
The formation of these state governments may have
excited Americans more than the latter formation of
the union itself, and the American Constitution explicitly
guaranteed to each state a republican form of government
(Article IV, Section 4). Once the United States achieved
its independence, many Americans pondered how citizens
could owe allegiance to two governments, two legislatures,
simultaneously. Were the states and national government
partners or were the states meekly to accept national
supremacy? No one at the Constitutional Convention quite
knew what to expect from this layer-of-powers (or was it
a marble-cake, twentieth century political scientists later
debated), and numerous, contrary explanations emerged
of what the delegates had actually achieved. In no area did
the confusion become more manifest or disruptive than in
internal improvements, especially in water projects that
crossed state lines.
The term ‘‘internal improvements’’ came to mean
many things to the citizens of the young republic. It
included roads, canals, schools, lighthouses, fortifications,
and even technological innovations-most anything that
seemed to provide security and promote the economy.
Gradually, it came to mean something a bit more
specific, though still covering (pardon the pun) a
large amount of ground: it applied to what we now
call ‘‘infrastructure,’’ and water transportation was a
central concern. Benjamin Franklin had proposed at the
Constitutional Convention that Congress have the power
to construct canals, but opponents won the day, fearing
that Congress would become too powerful. In fact, the term
‘‘internal improvements’’ cannot be found in the American
Constitution, an obstacle for those seeking affirmative
authority for federal involvement in public works. But
neither did the Constitution proscribe the activity, which
meant to internal improvement advocates that the
function lay legitimately within federal authority. This
ambiguity not only produced a constitutional quagmire for
internal improvements, but it provided a platform upon
which larger issues of the role of government and the
nature of liberty could be debated. In short, the internal
 WATER MARKETS: TRANSACTION COSTS AND INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS
improvements issue amplified and sharpened the debates
about the very nature of American republicanism. By any
other name, it continues to serve that function to the
present day.
Given Americans’ distrust of government and empha-
sis on personal liberty, America’s first politicians, and all
the generations following, confronted the difficulty of pro-
moting economic growth without expanding governmental
authority. One answer was the corporation, a device that
actually predated the Constitution but in the age of inter-
nal improvements became much favored. As presumed
promoters of the public good, they effectively became agen-
cies of government. In this way, legislatures could support
economic and political development without necessarily
involving tax monies. The fact that individual incorpora-
tors might thereby profit aroused little concern. The more
important point was that corporations brought together
sufficient capital to launch an enterprise, whether a canal
or a municipal water system. Even if a number of these
ventures brought forth charges of corruption, internal
improvement advocates ceaselessly trumpeted the moral
and intellectual gifts stemming from public works, as
though canals were spiritual as well as economic enter-
prises. To complaints that corporations disenfranchised
people and led to the inequitable distribution of wealth,
champions argued-somewhat quaintly in light of what sub-
sequently emerged corporations were nothing more than
little republics eminently suited for the United States. For
better or worse, the victory of the corporation in American
life was almost as revolutionary as the victory of repub-
licanism itself, and the alliance between government and
corporations became a hallmark of American economic
development. Government was not to replace business,
but was to support and, within certain limits, protect it.
George Washington and other Federalists had ardently
hoped that corporations might provide the capital and
means to build internal improvements to bind the
nation together and transcend local interests, perhaps
leaving overall planning to the national government. But
the chance slipped through their hands. The structure
of Congress assured that state interests in internal
improvements would prevail over national interest. There
would be no national board, no national planning. Rather,
Congress would periodically pass rivers and harbors acts
that generally reflected parochial politics. To stimulate
states and the private sector, Congress also provided a
percentage of funds obtained from the sale of public lands
in new states to finance roads and canals (the three and five
percent funds dating back to 1802) and voted to turn over
certain lands to states for reclamation (Swampland acts of
1849 and 1850). In a few cases, too, Congress might vote to
subscribe to canal stock or even grant land to a company-a
practice that presaged the enormous land grants given
to railroad companies as they extended their presaged
the enormous land grants given to railroad companies as
they extended their lines across the continent later in
the century.
Caught in a congressional quagmire that appeared
to offer no rational plan for the development of the
country’s infrastructure, succeeding presidents attempted
to develop some orderly process, but at the same time
499
they worried over possibly unconstitutional intrusions into
areas beyond federal authority. We turn our attention to
the Executive Branch in part two of this series.
This article is based on Martin Reuss, ‘‘The Develop-
ment of American Water Resources, Planners, Politicians,
and Constitutional Interpretation,’’ in Paul Slack and
Julie Trottier (Eds.), Managing Water Resources, Past
and Present: The Twelfth Annual Linacre Lectures. Oxford
University Press, 2004. Used by permission of Oxford
University Press.
The Development of American Water Resources:
Planners, Politicians, and Constitutional Interpretation.
The Constitution and Early Attempts at Rational
Water Planning.
The Expansion of Federal Water Projects.
WATER MARKETS: TRANSACTION COSTS AND
INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS
TERENCE R. LEE
Santiago, Chile
The costs involved in the transfer of property, or
transaction costs, can significantly affect the capacity of
any market to operate efficiently. If water marketing is
to achieve its full potential, markets must be designed to
minimize transaction costs. Water marketing may lead,
however, to efficiency gains, even if transaction costs are
high. Moreover, increasing water scarcity will raise the
welfare gains from trade relative to these costs, as the
value of water rights increases. Transaction costs can
be lowered by technological advance and by institutional
design. It can also be expected that transactions costs
will fall as the market matures, as learning by doing has
its effect.
TRANSACTION COSTS
Transaction costs can be defined as those resources
dedicated to establish, operate, and enforce a market
system. They may take one of two forms, the services which
buyers or sellers must provide from their own resources;
the differences (margins) between the buying price and
the selling price of a water right, for example, due to the
direct financial cost of any brokerage services.
In a water market, there are three potential sources of
transaction costs:
the costs of finding trading partners, of verifying
ownership of water rights, and of describing the
right for purposes of the proposed transfer;
the costs involved in reaching an agreement to trade,
such as negotiating the price; arranging financing
and other terms of transfer; drawing up contracts;
consulting with lawyers and other experts; paying
fees for brokerage, legal and insurance services; and
transferring legal titles;
the costs of setting up a legal, regulatory and institu-
tional framework, mitigating possible third-party
500 WATER MARKETS: TRANSACTION COSTS AND INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS
effects, and ensuring compliance with applicable
laws.
Water markets tend to be highly regulated, so many
transaction costs arise from public policies governing
water transfers. The burden imposed by policy-induced
transaction costs comes from the direct costs of a
transfer and also from the delays due to waiting
for regulatory approval. These costs can be high. For
example, in the western United States, waiting periods
for state agency decisions, vary from 4–6 months in New
Mexico, to 5–9 months in Utah, and to an astonishing
20–29 months in Colorado (1,2). It is possible to place
institutional restraints on such regulatory induced delays.
In Chile, the Water Code regulates the maximum time
periods permitted for each stage of any recourse to
regulatory intervention (3). This type of institutional
requirement, at least, reduces the arbitrariness inherent
in regulatory delays.
Transaction costs prevent markets from operating
efficiently and reduce the overall economic benefits
of water marketing. They increase the cost of water
rights and decrease the incentive to trade. Transaction
costs introduce inefficiencies, which block equalization
of marginal values among different uses, users, and
locations. In extreme cases, transaction costs can prevent
markets from forming altogether.
These considerations imply that transaction costs
usually reduce welfare and that public policies to reduce
costs will be welfare improving. This does not mean,
however, that all regulation of water markets is bad.
Some costs arise from justifiable efforts to protect third-
party interests. Such policy-induced transaction costs are
not necessarily wasteful or inefficient if they provide
real protection for third parties that may be affected by
water transfers.
Transaction costs can be independent of the quantity
of water rights transferred. The title search, filing fees,
and other similar costs are often fixed. This penalizes
smaller trades and favors larger trades. Other transaction
costs, such as brokers’ commissions, may be proportional
to the amounts or values traded. More extensive water
infrastructure and highly developed user institutions can
lower costs. A recent empirical study indicates that, in
Chile, transaction costs are particularly low in the areas
that have more modern infrastructure and well-developed
water users associations (4).
Variations in transaction costs can affect the spatial
concentration of market activity. In Texas, for example,
the major market activity is concentrated in the Lower
Rio Grande Valley where transaction costs are low (5).
Transaction costs can also affect the choice of the type of
transaction. For example, usually the transaction costs for
a permanent transfer exceed those for a lease.
MARKET-RELATED TRANSACTION COSTS
The efficiency of any competitive markets rests on the
assumption that good, reliable, and easily accessible
information is available. In practice, such information
is not always available for water markets, partly because
producing and disseminating information is often costly
and difficult and, partly, because the means to redistribute
risk are incompletely developed due to uncertainty
about the nature of the risk and the asymmetry of
information between market participants. Altogether,
however, the information requirements for efficient water
marketing are no greater than those needed for effective
administrative allocation of water.
A study of water markets in the western United States
concluded that all markets studied were characterized
by varying degrees of uncertainty and incomplete access
to market information on water commodities, prices,
and market opportunities (6). Where there is no ready
means for buyers and sellers to obtain information, they
face legal, hydrologic, and economic uncertainties. These
constitute a substantial cost disincentive to engage in
water marketing.
INSTITUTIONAL OPTIONS
Efficient construction of any market requires the existence
of the necessary conditions for trading to occur: (1) well-
defined property rights, (2) public information on the
supply of and the demand for water rights, and (3) the
physical and legal possibility for trading to take place.
Of these three necessary conditions, by far the most
important is the existence of well-defined property rights.
In the case of water, property rights define and limit the
rights and duties of their holders relative to one another
and to the rest of society to the use of a certain amount
of water, which may be defined either volumetrically
or in terms of shares of a stream or canal flow. If
rights are poorly defined, market processes cannot be
relied upon to allocate water resources efficiently. It is
a basic responsibility of governments, as far as markets
are concerned, to define, allocate, and enforce property
rights in water. Government policies play a critical role
in defining the institutional setting for market operation
and provide the basis for market activity by defining,
allocating, and enforcing water rights.
The way property rights are defined will structure the
incentives and disincentives that members of society face
in their decisions regarding water ownership, use, and
transfer. For market participants to estimate the value of a
water right, they must be able to form secure expectations
about the benefits and costs of owning and transferring it
and the degree to which it is protected from impairment
by others (7).
So, there is a need for a reliable and trusted means
of registering rights. Hydrologic information is also
required to permit the right to be defined. Various
types of information are essential for rational decision-
making by water rights holders: the legal and hydrologic
characteristics of water rights and the costs of alternative
means of obtaining water. This implies the existence of
good data and monitoring systems, which can be provided
only by public agencies.
The public availability of information on the supply
of and the demand for water rights must also include
the means to identify willing buyers, sellers and
intermediaries or brokers and the means for entering into

enforceable contracts. Such information is better provided
by the market rather than by public agencies.
In addition, a clearly defined set of transfer rules
is necessary to permit market transactions to take
place when buyers and sellers determine. Transactions
should be contingent only upon compliance with a known
set of trading rules or transfer criteria. This is an
essential prerequisite for a continuous water market.
There must also be information ensuring that the physical
possibilities for the transfers produced through trade can
actually happen. This may require the legal possibility
of easements or the purchase of rights of way across the
property of third parties.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Colby, B.G., McGinnis, M.A., and Rait, K.A. (1989). Procedural
aspects of state water law: transferring water rights in the
western states. Ariz. Law Rev. 31.
2. MacDonnell, L. (1990). The Water Transfer Process as a
Management Option for Meeting Changing Water Demands.
Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado,
Boulder.
3. Lee, T.R. (2000). Water Management in the 21st Century: the
Allocation Imperative. Elgar, Cheltenham.
4. Hearne, R.R. and William, E.K. (1995). Water allocation and
water markets: an analysis of gains-from-trade in Chile,
Technical Paper Number 315, The World Bank, Washington,
DC.
5. Chang, C. and Griffin, R.C. (1992). Water marketing as a
reallocative institution in Texas. Water Resour. Res. March,
No. 3.
6. Saliba and Colby B. (1987). Do water markets ‘work’? Market
transfers and trade-offs in the Southwestern states. Water
Resour. Res. 7.
7. Colby, B.G. (1988). Economic impacts of water law—state law
and water market development in the Southwest. Nat. Resour.
J. October, No. 4.
AVERTING WATER DISPUTES
JODY W. LIPFORD
PERC
Bozeman, Montana, and
Presbyterian College
Clinton, South Carolina
INTRODUCTION
At midnight on August 31, 2003, time ran out on
a proposed agreement among the states of Alabama,
Florida, and Georgia to allocate water in the Apalachicola-
Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin. The deal had been
13 years in the making, but it ended in failure. ‘‘It’s a true
shame that we were as close as we were and couldn’t get
an agreement,’’ said Alabama’s chief negotiator (1).
It was a shame. The collapse of these lengthy
negotiations sends the matter to the courts, and the
Supreme Court may ultimately decide how the disputed
water will be divided. More broadly, the failure of the state
AVERTING WATER DISPUTES 501
governments to reach agreement reveals that water, long
considered plentiful in the southeastern United States,
is in danger of becoming a subject of intractable conflict.
The failure signals that a water crisis may well emerge
in the region unless new approaches to allocating water
are adopted.
As the population of the Southeast increases, competing
demands for water—for municipal use, for recreation, and
for hydropower, to name just a few—are growing. Today
the problem surfaces in the form of occasional interstate
disputes such as this one, but the failure to resolve them
casts an ever-longer shadow over the future of water
resources in the region. When demands of competing users
outstrip supply, there must be ways to ensure that water
goes to the users who value it most and that the waterways
of the Southeast are not roiled by unending conflict.
This article explains the reasons behind the conflict in
the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, why
attempts at resolving it failed, and what alternatives
should be considered. It explains how to allocate water
to its most productive uses, restore peace to the areas
around these waterways, and avert other conflicts that
are emerging, not only in these states but elsewhere in
the South.
THE BACKGROUND
As shown on the map in Fig. 1, the ACF Basin drains
an area of 19,800 square miles in the states of Georgia,
Alabama, and Florida. The Basin starts in the headwaters
of the Chattahoochee River in northern Georgia, above
Atlanta. The Chattahoochee flows through Georgia’s
Piedmont before turning sharply south, forming the
southern half of Georgia’s border with Alabama and a
notch in Georgia’s border with Florida. At the border,
it meets the Flint River to form the Apalachicola River,
which flows through the Florida panhandle into the Gulf
of Mexico (2).
Historically, in the ACF basin, as in most of the
southeastern United States, water has been abundant and
has met the many demands for it. The demands include
water for domestic, commercial, industrial, hydroelectric,
navigational, and recreational uses.
Under riparian water rights—the system of water
rights in the eastern part of the United States—land-
owners can use water that flows adjacent to their property
as long as they do not appreciably diminish the quantity
or quality of water available to downstream users. But
riparian rights were effectively overridden in 1946, when
Congress authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
to construct dams for flood control, navigation, and
hydroelectricity along the Chattahoochee River.1 Later,
1
The Army Corps of Engineers has long played a role in the ACF
River Basin. To facilitate commercial traffic, the Corps began
dredging the Chattahoochee River in the 1880s. At present, five
Army Corps dams dot the ACF River Basin: the Buford Dam,
which forms Lake Sidney Lanier; the West Point Dam, which
forms Lake West Point; the Walter F. George Dam, which forms
Lake Walter F. George; the George W. Andrews Dam; and the Jim
Woodruff Dam, which forms Lake Seminole. Authorization and
construction of these dams began in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s,
and by the 1970s they were all operational (3, pp. 151, 155).
502 AVERTING WATER DISPUTES

86° 85° 84° 83°

35°

Georg
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ma
ia
Sidney
34° Lanier

r
ive
R
ee Atlanta
ch
oo SC
ah

tt
Cha
AL GA
33° Flin
t

R
ive
r
Columbus FL
Location of

r
study area

tt a h o oc e Rive
32°
he
Albany

Lake
Ch a

Seminole
31°
Georgia
er

Florida
Riv

Chattahoochee
achicola

Tallahassee
Apal

30°

Apalachicola
Bay
0 50 miles
Gulf of Mexico
0 50 kilometers
Figure 1. Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF)
River Basin. Courtesy of Mandy-Scott Bachelier. 29°

the Corps added water supply and recreation as purposes
of the dams and the reservoirs they created (4,p.2; 5).
These projects transformed the waters of the basin from
private property governed by the riparian doctrine to
public property.
Today, the waters of the ACF River Basin continue to
be owned and managed by the federal government through
the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps’ managers
meet weekly to consider various water needs, such
as hydroelectric production, recreation, navigation, and
environmental quality (6). In addition, all requests to
increase water withdrawals must be approved by the Corps
(7, p. 993).
Except for flood control, each of these purposes requires
a minimal lake level or river flow rate. Electricity cannot
be produced, nor can barges navigate, without sufficient
water. Similarly, fish populations require stable lake
levels during spawning season. Sufficient flow also dilutes
pollution, helping to ensure water quality (6). The Corps
also commonly provides recreational facilities, such as
parking areas, boat ramps, and public restrooms. Response
to the recreational amenities of the lakes has been heavy;
millions of user-days are tallied each year (3, p. 158).
The Basin also supplies water for public use. All these
competing demands limit the amount of withdrawals that
can be made.
Conflicts Over Increasingly Scarce Water
For a long time, the system of riparian doctrine and
public management through the Army Corps of Engineers
worked well. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, rapid
population growth, particularly in metropolitan Atlanta,
combined with recurrent drought led to increased pressure
on the ACF River Basin’s resources.
Atlanta’s population grew from 2.2 million in 1980 to
3.0 million in 1990, and then to 4.1 million in 2000. Of
126 metropolitan statistical areas listed by the Census
Bureau, only 17 had higher population growth rates from
1980 to 1990, and only eight had higher population growth
rates from 1990 to 2000.2
2
See Table 30 of U.S. Census Bureau (8, pp. 32–34).

Demand for water to satisfy this growing population
increased dramatically. Metropolitan Atlanta’s water use
increased from 289 million gallons per day in 1980 to 459
million gallons per day in 1990, and then to 606 million
gallons per day in 2000.3 Metro Atlanta relies almost
exclusively on surface water; over 70% comes from the
Chattahoochee River and Lake Sidney Lanier, the lake
formed north of Atlanta by the dam at the headwaters of
the Chattahoochee.
Yet, the Chattahoochee River and Lake Lanier are ill
suited to supplying Atlanta’s water needs. The Chatta-
hoochee is the smallest watershed in the country to supply
a metropolitan area with the majority of its water (9).
The largest share of Atlanta’s water use—53.8%—is for
residential use; commercial, government, and industrial
users take 22.8%, 5.6%, and 4.2%, respectively (10).
A preliminary study by the Army Corps of Engineers
indicates that Atlanta is already approaching, and at times
exceeding, water use levels that were not expected until
2030. Whether these findings are accurate or not—the
Georgia Environmental Protection Division says that the
Chattahoochee River and Lake Lanier are sufficient to
supply Atlanta through 2030—there is no doubt that
future demands on the Chattahoochee River and Lake
Lanier will be heavy and growing (11).
Drought has worsened this pressure on the River
Basin’s waters. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Southeast
experienced recurrent and severe droughts. In the most
severe drought, rainfall in Atlanta fell by as much as 25%,
and annual average streamflows along the Apalachicola
River fell to less than half their historical norms.4
The Crisis Begins
In 1989, recognizing that Atlanta’s ‘‘finite supply of clean
water is looming as a barrier to growth’’ (12, p. 68),
Atlanta and the Army Corps of Engineers proposed to
approximately double the water Atlanta drew from Lake
Lanier, to 529 million gallons per day. Without sufficient
water, Georgia officials feared the loss of 680,000 jobs and
$127 billion in wages through 2010 (13, p. 26).
The proposal by Georgia and the Army Corps alarmed
the citizens of Alabama. Increased withdrawals from
Lake Lanier would reduce flows along the segment of
the Chattahoochee River that forms the southern half of
Alabama’s border with Georgia and would stunt economic
development there. So, in 1990, Alabama sued the Army
Corps to keep it from allocating more of the ACF River
Basin’s waters to Atlanta.
The state of Florida quickly joined the lawsuit on
the side of Alabama, fearing that reduced water flows
would harm the oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay farther
downstream and lead to deterioration of the Apalachicola’s
water quality. The state of Georgia then joined the lawsuit
on the side of the Army Corps of Engineers to defend its
withdrawal. The stage was set for 13 years of studies,
proposals, counterproposals, and extended deadlines.
3
Data supplied by Julia Fanning, U.S. Geological Survey, Atlanta,
e-mail correspondence, November 7, 2003.
4 wastewater into the Chattahoochee and to comply with the Clean
For data on streamflow of the Apalachicola River at Chat-
tahoochee, FL, see waterdata.usgs.gov/fl/nwis/annual/calendar
year/?site no=02358000.
AVERTING WATER DISPUTES 503
These actions reflected unique concerns in each state.
Alabama officials worried that Atlanta’s withdrawals
would stifle Alabama’s economic development by limiting
water needed for domestic, industrial, and commercial
use. Water quality would also suffer because reduced
downstream flows would mean less dilution of polluted
upstream water. Atlanta not only uses a large amount
of water, but also discharges heavily polluted water back
into the Chattahoochee (7, p. 996; 12, p. 68–69).5 If dirtier
water came from Atlanta, Alabama might have to raise
water cleanup standards for industrial and municipal
users, which would be costly and would put Alabama
at a competitive disadvantage in attracting economic
development (14, p. 3).
From Florida’s perspective, the chief problem was
oyster beds. Reduced flows, especially at critical times,
and heavier pollution could threaten the Apalachicola
Bay’s oyster industry, which supplies approximately 10%
of the country’s oysters and employs over 1000 people.
The river is also a commercial source of shrimp, blue crab,
and finfish, as well as the home of an important sport
fishery and the only commercial source of Tupelo honey. It
has been recognized as an Outstanding Florida Water (15,
p. 34; 16).
Other factors exacerbated the conflict. For example,
recreational users want lakes kept full or nearly full;
however, the competing objectives of hydropower and
flood control require that lakes be drawn down, typically
during summer and winter. Similarly, navigation requires
minimal flows that reduce the water in lakes when
river levels become too low for barge traffic. Finally,
ecosystem preservation requires a pattern of flows that
mimics nature’s seasonal cycle and may conflict with other
demands (4, p. 2; 14, p. 3).
Despite years of negotiation, the states never agreed
how to allocate the basin’s waters. Because these
negotiations failed, the matter is now likely to be settled
by the Supreme Court.
Constitutional Paths to Solution
Once Alabama took the Corps to court in 1989, the
states had several constitutional options to choose
from to settle the conflict over water allocation. They
could go to Congress for a decision, their suits could
reach the Supreme Court, or they could negotiate their
own agreement or compact. Neither Congress nor the
Supreme Court likes to get involved in interstate water
disputes. Moreover, suits reaching the Supreme Court
are costly, usually require lengthy negotiations, and yield
uncertain outcomes.
For these reasons, the states opted for an interstate
water compact. Alabama agreed to deactivate its lawsuit
during the negotiation period, the Army Corps of
Engineers agreed not to allocate additional water from
Lake Lanier to Atlanta, and all parties agreed to a
comprehensive study of the water resources in the basin (4,
5
In response to federal consent decrees to stop spills of untreated
Water Act, Atlanta is currently trying to raise over $3 billion to
renovate its antiquated sewage treatment system.
504 AVERTING WATER DISPUTES
pp. 3–4).6 In early 1997, all three state legislatures ratified
legislation authorizing the negotiation of an ACF River
Basin Compact to allocate the basin’s waters. These acts
were subsequently signed by the three state governors.
The U.S. Constitution requires congressional approval
of interstate compacts, so in November 1997, Congress
approved and President Clinton signed federal authorizing
legislation. The goal of the compact was to assign property
rights to water fairly and avoid future conflicts. This goal
proved elusive, however.
The Failure of the Compact
The federal legislation set an initial deadline of December
31, 1998 for compact negotiations, unless the states agreed
unanimously to extend that deadline.7 This deadline
proved much too optimistic, as each state presented
proposals reflecting its parochial interests. To begin with,
Alabama and Florida wanted consumptive uses of water
defined and limited.8 Georgia resisted this approach in
favor of one that focused on reservoir levels. Specifically,
Georgia wanted the ACF River Basin’s reservoirs to
be kept full or nearly full (19, p. 8), so that Georgia
would have enough water to supply Atlanta (4, p.
14). In return, Georgia offered Alabama and Florida
minimum flow guarantees. But Alabama and Florida
rejected Georgia’s proposal, fearing that the minimum
flows might become the norm, in essence reducing the
water flowing downstream.
To ensure adequate flows along its border, Alabama
argued that the ACF River Basin’s water should
be allocated to meet the original objectives of dam
construction. These included navigation (i.e., barge traffic),
flood prevention, and hydroelectric production—but not
water supply to municipalities or recreation (4, p. 2; 19,
p. 9). Florida agreed with Alabama in opposing minimum
flows, but also wanted downstream flows to be adjusted
to mimic natural flow cycles. Additional problems plagued
the negotiations, from definitional questions (e.g., how to
define ‘‘severe drought’’) to the choice of the computer
model for forecasting river flows and lake levels (19, pp.
9–10).
No agreement was forthcoming, so the states agreed to
extend the deadline till January 1, 2000. Yet, the passing of
another year did not appreciably advance the negotiations.
Once again, the states set a 1-year deadline, establishing
a pattern of deadline extensions that continued until July
22, 2003. At that point, progress seemed to have been
made. The three governors signed a Memorandum of
Understanding that set a blueprint for water allocation
6 million per year toward the operation of Lake Lanier’s Buford
Until the compact was completed, the states agreed to ‘‘freeze’’
water at current use levels. Should increased withdrawals be
needed, the states agreed to notify other states in advance (17, p.
202). For further details, see Public Law 105-104, Article VII (c).
7 dam and who had filed suit against the Corps in 2000 because
[Public Law 105-104, Article VIII (3)].
8
Consumptive use, also known as water consumed or water
depleted, may be defined as the ‘‘part of water withdrawn that
is evaporated, transpired, incorporated into products or crops,
consumed by humans or livestock, or otherwise removed from the
immediate water environment.’’ The definition also includes ‘‘any
water withdrawn in the basin and transferred out of the basin for
use’’ (18).
in the ACF River Basin. The memorandum authorized
water supply for Atlanta from Lake Lanier at 705 million
gallons per day and left open the possibility of greater
future withdrawals. The memo also established minimum
flow requirements downstream from Atlanta; the most
important was a flow of 5,000 cubic feet per second on
the Apalachicola River at Chattahoochee, Florida. The
deadline for final agreement on the memorandum was
August 31, 2003 (20).
Although Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed the mem-
orandum, he and other Florida officials had reservations,
which they expressed in an accompanying statement (21).
They insisted that minimum flows must not become tar-
gets, that Lake Lanier must be managed to deal effectively
with drought, and that the governing ACF Commission
must have authority to approve any withdrawals from
Lake Lanier that exceeded the amount specified in the
memorandum.9
Ultimately, the states could not agree. Florida feared
that minimum flows, which had been less than 5000 cubic
feet per second only twice during the recent droughts
(on a mean monthly basis), might become the norm.
Thus, Florida officials again raised the issue of Georgia’s
withdrawals from Lake Lanier. Georgia officials responded
by agreeing either to limit Atlanta’s withdrawals or
to promise minimum flows through the basin, but not
both, and accused Florida of trying to micromanage its
waters (23,24). As a result, Florida officials refused to
accept the Memorandum of Understanding, and the deal
collapsed. The states have now reactivated their original
lawsuits (1,5,24).10
THE ALLOCATION OF WATER
Economists recognize the scarcity of valuable resources.
Without prices on these resources, there is not enough
to satisfy all who want to use them. In most settings,
however, market prices allocate resources and allow
them to move to those users who value them the most.
This market process allocates resources to their most
productive uses and maximizes society’s wealth. In the
case of the ACF River Basin water, however, market prices
do not currently allocate water; it is allocated politically.
Economists also recognize that resources have multiple
uses. Water, for example, may be used to generate
9
Sixty-four percent of the ACF River Basin’s reservoir capacity is
held in Lake Lanier (22).
10
Complicating the legal proceedings is a deal struck by Georgia
and the Army Corps of Engineers in January 2003 in which
metropolitan Atlanta governments agreed to pay the Corps $2.5
Dam in exchange for greater withdrawals from the lake. With this
deal, metropolitan Atlanta sought not only to obtain additional
water, but also to mollify hydropower customers who pay for the
the Corps had already allocated water from hydropower to supply
metropolitan Atlanta. Georgia and the Corps negotiated this
deal without informing Alabama or Florida and set it aside only
when Alabama and Florida found out about it and threatened to
withdraw from the compact negotiations. This deal, like the initial
lawsuits between the states and the Corps, has been reactivated
and will have to be settled by the courts (5,25).

electricity; aid oyster production; provide wildlife habitat;
produce industrial products; provide channel depth for
barges; provide recreational opportunities for boaters,
skiers, and fishers; or supply households with water for
drinking, watering lawns, or filling swimming pools. In
the ACF Basin, some water is used in each of these ways.
Whether allocation occurs through market prices or
other methods, it is rarely all-or-nothing. In the Southeast
(and the United States generally), there is ample water to
supply basic human needs, such as drinking water. Where
conflicts occur, as in the ACF Basin, it is over shifting
some water, not all water, from one use to another. Simply
put, the ACF Basin issue is whether more water should be
allocated to Atlanta, presenting Alabama and Florida with
the prospect of less water but not complete deprivation.
Although compacts have some advantages over congres-
sional or judicial apportionment, they are poorly suited to
allocate water in ways that maximize water’s productive
value to society. Compacts are highly political and con-
front intractable information problems, and such was the
case with the negotiations over the ACF Basin’s waters.
Interest Groups
Groups with a vested interest in the outcome of the com-
pact influenced the ACF River Basin negotiations. Each
tried to get more water allocated in its favor, irrespective
of water’s most productive uses. The influence of these
groups introduced conflict, making a workable agreement
difficult to achieve. Industrial, environmental, municipal,
and political interests all made their voices heard (19, p.
8). The Atlanta Journal-Constitution identified political
and business leaders of metropolitan Atlanta, environ-
mentalists, and Florida’s shellfish and fishing industries
as uncompromising interest groups who refused to yield
to the demands of other users (1).
The Apalachicola Bay’s oyster industry serves as an
example of a small, well-organized interest group with
strong influence; its employment of approximately 1000
people is minimal in a state with total employment
of approximately 7.2 million.11 Note, however, that the
industry had support throughout the state of Florida from
citizens who wanted the environmental amenities of their
state’s river preserved.
After the agreement failed, some interests, such as
the Atlanta Regional Commission and homeowners and
businesses on Lakes Lanier and West Point, seemed just
as happy. They feared that Georgia had compromised too
much already.
Informational Problems
Even if negotiators could be insulated from interest group
influence, they would still face important informational
questions. If their goal is to allocate the water to its
most productive uses, negotiators must first know how
much total water can be allocated and how that will
vary over years of normal rainfall and drought. Perhaps
most important, they need to determine whether society
will benefit more from allocating water to Atlanta’s
11
The employment figure is taken from table 602 of U.S. Census
Bureau (8, p. 393).
AVERTING WATER DISPUTES 505
developers, say, or to Florida’s oyster producers. And,
if they can decide objectively to allocate more water to
Florida’s oyster producers, they would still have to decide
whether the extra water should come from Lake Lanier
(thereby maintaining levels at downstream reservoirs) or
from downstream reservoirs (thereby maintaining levels
at Lake Lanier).
By making these decisions, policy makers are implicitly
choosing who will benefit and who will be harmed.
A decision to allocate more water to Atlanta lessens
development in eastern Alabama and reduces Florida’s
seafood production. A decision to allocate more water
to Alabama and Florida benefits the economies of
these states, but curbs Atlanta’s economic development.
Similarly, a decision to supply downstream users from
Lake Lanier diminishes recreational opportunities for
users of that lake and maintains those opportunities
for users of downstream reservoirs; the opposite decision
would benefit Lake Lanier’s recreational users but harm
those who use downstream reservoirs. And even if policy
makers could determine water’s most productive uses,
their decisions would soon be rendered obsolete by changes
in the total supply of water, changes in the total demand
for water, and marginal changes in allocation necessary
to maximize the total productive value of the basin’s
water resources.
Negotiators did try to obtain answers to some of the
technical questions through the use of computer software
that forecast future river flows and reservoir levels based
on consideration of ‘‘historic rainfall patterns over the
last fifty-five years’’ and ‘‘anticipated water uses within
the basin in a future year, typically 2030 or 2050’’ (19,
p. 8). But repetition of historical rainfall patterns is not
guaranteed. Nor are anticipated water uses easily forecast.
Atlanta’s rapid population growth and commensurate
water use have been dramatically underpredicted by the
experts.12 To compound matters further, different software
programs give different estimates, and, not surprisingly,
the states have used different modeling programs (19,
p. 10).
Practical Problems
Negotiators confronted two other factors that made
agreement less likely: (1) The ACF River Basin’s waters
were already fully allocated, and (2) the drought was
expected to end soon. That the water wealth of the ACF
River Basin is already fully allocated made bargaining
more contentious because changes will force redistribution
of existing allocations. In contrast, for example, the
country’s first interstate water compact, the Colorado
River Compact of 1922, was negotiated in the arid
West, and more water was anticipated from the Boulder
Canyon Project Act, which authorized the Hoover Dam
and created Lake Mead. Moreover, negotiators knew that
the 1998–2002 drought was unprecedented and would
likely come to an end, reducing pressures on the ACF
River Basin’s waters. These expectations were borne out;
12
The State and Metropolitan Area Data Book, 1997–98 predicted
that metropolitan Atlanta’s 2000 population would be 3.682
million (26). The actual figure was 4.112 million, an error of
430,000 for a prediction published only 2 years in advance.
506 AVERTING WATER DISPUTES
abundant rain fell during the latter half of 2002 and during
2003.13
PROPOSALS FOR MARKETING WATER
With compact negotiations now in disarray, policy makers
must look to other alternatives. An obvious proposal is for
Atlanta (and other municipalities in the basin) to charge
a price for its water that at least approximates its market
value. Ample evidence shows that higher water prices
reduce consumption (27, p. 12–13). At present, water is
underpriced in Atlanta, leading to overuse. Even in the
most recent drought, the city of Atlanta raised its price to
residential users by only 3%. For the average residential
user, the monthly water bill rose from $16.55 to $17.05.
The city plans additional rate hikes through 2004, but
these will raise average residential bills by a mere $1.00
per month (28). During the drought, rather than raising
the price of water further, officials imposed restrictions on
outdoor water use that continue in effect (29,30).
Raising water prices to market levels is apparently not
politically feasible. This means that the states of Alabama,
Florida, and Georgia and the federal government should
consider basinwide proposals to create water markets.
Experience with markets in water has shown that they
can overcome some of the most difficult challenges of
water allocation. They can ensure that water is allocated
to its most productive uses and can prevent conflicts
among users.
To some, marketing water is still a strange idea. Long
accustomed to the notion that water is a commonly owned
resource, many readers may doubt that it is feasible to
‘‘trade’’ water and thereby satisfy various interests more
readily than through political negotiations. Yet, there is
a strong precedent for marketing of water. Much of the
American West is arid; it receives less than 17 inches
of precipitation a year. With water always precious, the
West evolved a system of private property rights to water,
and with it, water markets. This system, known as the
prior appropriation doctrine, resulted from the need to
divert water for mining and agriculture. In simplest
terms, it allowed a person to divert water from a river
or stream on the basis of seniority (or ‘‘first in time, first
in right’’); the right remained as long as the individual
continued to use the water (‘‘use it or lose it’’). Water
users could transfer their rights to others. The private
provision of water flourished (31, p. 31–45), and continues
to do so, although laws that guide the transfers of water
are somewhat antiquated, and restrictions on transfers
that made sense in the past do not necessarily encourage
efficient use today.
In spite of these restrictions, water trades occur among
agricultural users, between agricultural users and cities,
and between agricultural users and environmentalists.
Even interbasin and interstate trades are common (27,
13
From July 2002 to August 2003, rainfall exceeded normal levels
in Atlanta, Columbus, and Albany, Georgia, by 9.64 inches, 12.21
inches, and 6.57 inches, respectively (data supplied by Pam Knox,
assistant state climatologist, Georgia State Climatology Office,
University of Georgia, Athens, e-mail correspondence, October
15, 2003).
p. 14–21). In Texas, where both riparian and prior
appropriation doctrines are recognized, a system of
marketable permits similar to that described below
allocates water along the Rio Grande River (32).
In a fully functioning water market, users pay a market
price for water consumed, and that price serves as a
rationing mechanism. Those who can put the water to the
most productive use and demonstrate this by willingness
to pay, will purchase the water, be they residential
developers or oyster producers. Market prices motivate
those with relatively less productive opportunities to sell
the water to more productive users. Through markets,
groups can work out slight or marginal changes that
maximize the total value from all uses.
Markets also yield peace among transacting parties. In
markets, only the parties considering buying or selling a
resource take part in the negotiations. Outside influences
from politicians, bureaucrats, or interest groups do not
guide the negotiations, as they do in the political process.
The terms of exchange, such as the price, must be
voluntarily agreed upon for exchange to occur. Any would-
be buyer or seller who does not like the price does not have
to buy or sell.
In contrast, in the political sphere, resource users often
do not pay a price for a resource they consume, or they pay
less than the resource’s market value. This encourages
them always to want more and leads to conflicts among
users and a state of perpetual unhappiness for all.
As economists often point out, the foundation for
markets is private property rights that are defined—that
is, rights with a clearly specified ownership claim;
enforced—that is, rights with a claim that is secure;
and transferable—that is, rights that may be sold
to others. Clearly defined, enforced, and transferable
property rights are necessary for exchange. Buyers will
not purchase resources if the rights to those resources
are uncertain or insecure, but when rights to property
are certain, secure, and transferable, markets flourish.
Market-based allocation of the ACF River Basin’s waters
would encourage allocation of the basin’s waters to their
most productive uses and foster peace among users.
The Army Corps’ Role
To understand how markets might work, it is appropriate
to begin with the Army Corps of Engineers, which is the
effective owner of the water in the ACF Basin. At present,
the Corps almost entirely depends on congressional
appropriations. In the Mobile District in which the ACF
River Basin is located, the Corps receives some fees for
its services, but they represent a small part of the Corps’
budget. The fees it receives are either insufficient to cover
the costs of its services (as in recreation fees), the Corps
does not retain the revenues (as in the case of revenues
from hydropower), or it simply does not charge for the
services it provides (as for navigational services, although
commercial vessels do pay a fuel tax that is used to fund
inland waterway projects).
The Corps is supported by taxpayer dollars and cannot
receive financial benefit from the services it provides, so it
has no incentive to determine which competing uses are
most productive and thus to adopt market exchange as the

way to allocate water in the Basin. In an ideal world, the
Corps’ financing and function would be changed to give
it an incentive to allocate scarce water resources to their
most productive uses, thereby raising the total wealth
generated from the Basin’s waters. This would happen if
the Corps were to retain property rights and management
authority over the Basin’s waters, but taxpayer support of
the Corps and its projects were reduced. In exchange, the
Corps would be given the authority to charge whatever
fees it deemed appropriate for the services it provided and
to retain the revenues. For example, the Corps could
implement or change fees it charges for hydropower,
dredging, water supply, and recreational services. If
drought or increased demand raised the relative scarcity
of water, the Corps would have the authority to raise fees.
Some taxpayer support is justified because the Corps also
provides flood control that benefits all users.
Although the Corps is extremely powerful in Congress
and therefore such a change in the financing of the
Corps is unlikely, there is some precedent for this kind
of institutional reform of a public agency. In 1996,
the Fee Demonstration Program allowed the National
Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land
Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service each
to choose 100 sites that could raise or implement
new fees and retain 80% of the revenues. Although
the Fee Demonstration Program does not intend self-
sufficiency for the participating agencies or individual
sites, the results from changed incentives are evident,
as these agencies have improved services to visitors
of public lands by allocating more funds to badly
needed repair and maintenance of some of the country’s
most-valued natural and recreational resources (33).
Like the Fee Demonstration program, reform of the
Army Corps of Engineers could begin on a short-term,
experimental basis.
With a mandate to balance its budget and the authority
to set fees and retain revenues, the Corps would have
an incentive to allocate water resources to their most
productive uses. If Atlanta developers wanted more water,
they would have to pay a price that reflected the value
of the water to other users. If it did not, those other
users would outbid it. The Corps would also have to take
into account the costs of its services. If barge traffic was
insufficient to generate revenues to cover the costs of
dredging, the Corps would cease to dredge the basin.
Through this system, those with the most productive
opportunities for the water would be the ones to obtain
it. Such allocation would also maximize the Corps’ net
revenues. Unfortunately, this outcome is not very likely to
occur in a political setting.
A System of Marketable Permits
Under current political arrangements, marketable permits
seem to be the most promising approach to creating a water
market. Marketable permits depend on the assignment of
property rights to water. To implement them in the ACF
River Basin, the Army Corps of Engineers could first
establish a daily ‘‘water budget,’’ consisting of the total
net withdrawals allowed from the basin, based on average
daily withdrawals from some past period of consumption.
AVERTING WATER DISPUTES 507
After this global budget is established, the Army Corps
of Engineers could grant water allocations to each user
based on average daily use, again from some period of
past consumption. Even though hydropower producers,
barges, and oyster producers do not strictly divert water,
the water they use is ‘‘diverted’’ from the Basin into
the Gulf of Mexico and therefore should be measured
for the allocation. By making the allocations daily, the
Corps would allow for seasonal variations in demand and
flood control. Permit allocations would be divisible and
transferable. And, of course, under no condition could
water be allocated in a way that violates federal water
use laws.
When the supply of rainfall was abundant, so that
water in the Basin exceeded the global daily budget, all
users could be satisfied without the need to transfer water
among users. However, in the case of drought, the Army
Corps of Engineers could cut daily permit allowances by
an equal percentage for all users. The Corps could then
serve as a water broker, facilitating transactions among
users by matching buyers and sellers and helping to
negotiate terms of exchange, while charging a fee to cover
administrative costs. Similarly, if the demand for water
rises to the point that it exceeds the global daily budget,
users who want more water would have to purchase that
water from other users.
To see how this might work, consider a simplified
example with two users, a lake, and a river running
downstream from the lake. Suppose the two users are
Atlanta developers and Florida oyster producers, the lake
named Lake Lanier, and the river the Chattahoochee.
Suppose that for a given day, the water budget for this
river basin is 1000 gallons, allocated between 800 gallons
for Atlanta developers and 200 gallons for Florida oyster
producers. (Actual quantities would, of course, be in the
millions of gallons per day.)
If rainfall allows greater net withdrawals, say to 1100
gallons, each user’s allotment can rise by 10%. A drought,
however, might reduce net withdrawals to 900 gallons,
forcing cuts in permitted allotments to 720 gallons for
Atlanta developers and 180 gallons for Florida oyster
producers. This is where trading comes in. If Atlanta’s
developers want to restore their allocation, they must offer
to purchase an additional 80 gallons from Florida’s oyster
producers. If the contracting parties agree, the Army Corps
will release less water from Lake Lanier, increasing the
amount available to Atlanta’s developers and reducing the
downstream flow for Florida’s oyster producers.
If, in contrast, Florida’s oyster producers want to retain
a flow of 200 gallons, they will offer to purchase an
additional 20 gallons from Atlanta developers. If the
parties agree, this time the Army Corps of Engineers
will release more water from Lake Lanier, reducing the
amount available for Atlanta’s developers but increasing
the flow for Florida’s oyster producers.
One can envision associations of users with similar
wants, such as an upstream association of developers
and recreational users and a downstream association
of hydroelectric utilities, barges, environmentalists, and
oyster producers. At times, association members would
benefit by combining funds and sharing costs.
508 AVERTING WATER DISPUTES
Purchasing water allotments to retire (i.e., not use)
them should also be allowed. For example, if electric
utilities want to increase downstream flows to generate
electricity at the same time that recreational users want
lake levels held high, as on a summer holiday weekend,
the recreational users could purchase water rights from
the electric utilities, if the utilities agreed, and retire
those rights. Instead of producing revenues through
hydropower, the electric utilities would receive payments
from recreational users. Similarly, environmentalists
might want to purchase and use or retire rights during
seasons when fish spawn.14
In each of the exchanges described, the amount of
water traded would be a small portion, not all of the
total allowances. For example, recreational users would
be likely to purchase some, but not all, of the electric
utilities’ water. Lake levels would fall enough to generate
some electricity, but not as much as they would fall if
recreational users did not purchase some of the water
rights.15
To be effective, these marketable permits must have
the key characteristics of property rights: They must be
clearly defined, so that each user knows its allocation for
each day; enforced, with the Army Corps of Engineers
serving as enforcer of the permit allowances through its
monitoring of lakes and dams; and transferable, with
transfer facilitated by the Army Corps of Engineers
serving as broker. With defined, enforced, and transferable
property rights, a water market could develop that would
ensure an allocation of water to its most productive uses
and peace among contracting parties.
As an alternative to water transfers among users at
mutually agreed upon prices, the Corps could advance
market allocation by establishing a water bank. The Corps
could serve as an underwriter that buys and sells water
at specified prices, with the spread between these prices
used to cover the costs of administering the bank. Such
banks have been used in times of drought. For example,
water banks were used successfully in 1977 and 1991 in
California to cope with drought. In 1991, California offered
to purchase water at a price of $125 per acre-foot and to sell
water at a price of $175 per acre-foot. The state purchased
and sold 400,000 acre-feet of water, mostly to municipal
and agricultural users (31, pp. 11–12, 102–103).
In the ACF River Basin, the Army Corps of Engineers
could assign to users daily property rights to flows of
water, based on historic use patterns, and then serve as
a water banker, standing ready to buy and sell water
at specified prices. Depositors could leave water in the
Basin, and withdrawers could buy it. With price playing
an allocative role and with voluntary transactions, the
14
Retiring rights requires some ranking among users. If
hydropower users have the higher ranking, recreational users
would have to purchase rights from them to keep lake levels up.
On the other hand, if recreational users had the higher ranking,
hydropower users would have to purchase rights from them to
drop lake levels. Coase (34) argues that clearly defined property
rights and sufficiently low transaction costs will lead to allocating
resources to their most productive uses.
15
With less water for hydroelectric production, utilities might
have to raise prices to their customers.
Basin’s waters would be allocated more efficiently, and
relations among the ACF River Basin’s users would
become more harmonious.
Implications for the Southeast
Making these kinds of changes in the ACF River Basin is
critical because water conflicts are brewing throughout the
Southeast. Along Georgia’s border with South Carolina, a
request by Habersham County, Georgia, to withdraw 12.5
million gallons per day from the Savannah River Basin
provoked the South Carolina state legislature to introduce
resolutions calling on Congress to stop the Army Corps
of Engineers from granting the request, which would
have transferred water from the Savannah River Basin
to the ACF Basin.16 In addition, Georgia is involved in a
dispute with Alabama over water in the Alabama-Coosa-
Tallapoosa River Basin. And North Carolina and South
Carolina have disputed the flow of water in the Yadkin-
Great Pee Dee River Basin (35–37). By establishing water
markets in the ACF River Basin, the states of Alabama,
Florida, and Georgia could serve as an example to other
southeastern states to help them avoid the conflicts that
have for so long plagued the attempts to allocate that
Basin’s waters.
WHAT CHANCE FOR CHANGE?
Market reforms offer great potential, but when govern-
ment is in control, change typically comes about only with
crisis. Higher rainfall since the summer of 2002 has dimin-
ished the sense of crisis. Does this mean that all hope is
lost for market allocation of water in the ACF River Basin
or elsewhere in the Southeast? Not at all.
By failing to achieve compact resolution, the states
of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia have embarked down
the risky path of judicial apportionment. The risk is that
the Supreme Court could allocate the ACF River Basin’s
waters in a way that is unsatisfactory to each or all
of the states (17, p. 226). Because these allocations are
not transferable, states with an unsatisfactory allocation
would have no way, short of further litigation, to change
the allocation. As the states contemplate this possibility,
they may find it prudent to drop their lawsuits and pursue
a means of allocating water that relies on markets, such
as one of the proposals offered in this article.
Once demand permanently outstrips supply under
current arrangements, water in the Southeast will be
rationed. The question will be how. Will water be rationed
by markets, which promote productive use and harmony
among users? Or will it be rationed by political processes
that are likely to result in misallocation and conflict?
As economic development continues, perhaps plagued by
drought, the citizens of the Southeast may choose the
efficiency and harmony of markets over the misallocation
and contention of politics.
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16
Before this conflict could escalate, Habersham County withdrew
its permit request.
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17. Erhardt, C. (1992). The battle over ‘‘The Hooch’’: The federal-
interstate water compact and the resolution of rights in the
Chattahoochee river. Stanford Environ. Law J. 11: 200–228.
18. Marella, R.L., Fanning, J.L., and Mooty, W.S. (1993). Esti-
mated Use of Water in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint
River Basin During 1990 with State Summaries from 1970 to
1990. Water-Resources Investigation Report, 93–4084. U.S.
Geological Survey, Tallahassee, FL.
19. Moore, C.G. (1999). Water wars: Interstate water allocation
in the Southeast. Nat. Resour. Environ. 14(Summer): 5–10;
66–67.
20. Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. (2003). Memorandum of
Understanding Regarding Initial Allocation Formula for
the ACF River Basin (July 22). Online: www.dep.state.fl.
us/secretary/comm/2003/july/0722 acf.htm (cited Sept. 29,
2003).
509
21. Struhs, D.B. (2003). Statement of Intent to Accompany the
Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Initial Alloca-
tion Formula for the ACF River Basin, July 22. Online:
www.dep.state.fl.us/secretary/comm/2003/july/0722 acf.
htm (cited Sept. 29, 2003).
22. Ritchie, B. (2003). River pact moves closer. Tallahassee
Democrat July 23, A1.
23. Ritchie, B. (2003). Florida willing to take battle to court.
Tallahassee Democrat August 27, B3.
24. Ritchie, B. (2003). High court may hear water fight.
Tallahassee Democrat September 2, A1.
25. Seabrook, C. (2003). Water Costs Likely to Rise. Atlanta
Journal-Constitution Sept. 8, F1.
26. U.S. Census Bureau. 1998. State and Metropolitan Area Data
Book, 1997–98. 5th Edn. Washington, DC.
27. Anderson, T.L. and Snyder, P.S. (1997). Priming the invisible
pump. PERC Policy Series, PS-9. PERC, Bozeman, MT.
28. Atlanta Bureau of Water. (2003). Rates, Fees & Meter
Price. Online: www.atlantaga.gov/citydir/water/index.htm
(cited Oct. 28, 2003).
29. Atlanta Regional Commission (2003). Current Water Restric-
tions (May 9). Online: atlreg.com/water/waterrestrictions.
html (cited November 6, 2003).
30. Judd, A. (2000). State slaps water limits on 15 metro counties:
outdoor water use banned from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Atlanta
Journal-Constitution June 2.
31. Anderson, T.L. and Snyder, P.S. (1997). Water Markets:
Priming the Invisible Pump. Cato Institute, Washington, DC.
32. Yoskowitz, D.W. (2001). Markets, mechanism, institutions,
and the future of water. Environ. Law Rep. 31(February).
33. Fretwell, H.L. (1999). Paying to play: The fee demonstration
program. PERC Policy Series, PS-17. PERC, Bozeman, MT.
34. Coase, R. (1960). The problem of social cost. J. Law Econ.
3(October): 1–44.
35. Henderson, Bruce. (2002). Who gets the water? Charlotte
Observer Dec. 29.
36. Libaw, O.Y. (2000). Water wars: Drought-ridden Southeast
battles over use of rivers (August 14). ABC News. Online:
more.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/dailynews/water000811.
html (cited Sept. 16, 2003).
37. Pompe, J.J. and Franck, D.P. (2003). The Economic Impact
of Water Transfer: Options for Policy Reform. Working
paper, Department of Economics, Francis Marion University,
Florence, SC.
WATER SUPPLY AND WATER RESOURCES:
DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM RESEARCH
MARK C. MECKES
ROY C. HAUGHT
U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency
Two water distribution system simulators (DSS) are in
operation at the U.S. EPA Test and Evaluation (T&E)
Facility in Cincinnati, Ohio. The T&E Facility is a
multifaceted research resource in which a wide variety
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the
public domain in the United States of America.
510 WATER SUPPLY AND WATER RESOURCES: DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM RESEARCH

of water treatment and other environmental protection Experimental studies (Table 2) are ongoing to understand
technologies are conceived, designed, and evaluated in the physical, chemical, and biological activities that occur
the laboratory, bench, and pilot plant scale. The EPA in drinking water distribution systems.
designed and fabricated the DSS systems to evaluate
and understand the dynamics which influence water
OBJECTIVES
quality within water distribution infrastructure systems
in the United States and abroad. The first distribution
The DSS provides researchers with a mechanism to
system simulator (DSS-1) has continuous flow conditions.
study how water quality is affected during distribution.
There are six individual 75 ft (25 meter) lengths of
Results from research studies (Table 2) will be used to
6 in (15 cm) diameter ductile iron pipe arranged into
provide guidance on how to maintain a high level of
‘‘pipe loop’’ configurations to simulate a distribution
water quality during distribution. A secondary objective
system. This pipeloop system can be configured to
to this project is to develop, evaluate, and demonstrate
operate as; independent/individual loops, collectively as
real time monitoring of water quality parameters within
one unit, or in various experimental configurations
distribution systems using remote telemetry. Results from
to complement EPA’s experimental research. DSS-1
research will be used to provide guidance on how to utilize
is equipped with two 1500 gallon reservoir tanks to
remote monitoring of water quality to detect changes in
simulate a comprehensive distribution infrastructure
water quality within distribution systems.
system. This unique engineering design permits operating
any combination and configuration of the six loops under
various experimental operating parameters (Table 1). RELEVANCE
Each loop is insulated and fitted with a heat exchanger
to maintain constant temperature conditions during Throughout the world there are millions of miles of
operation. The DSS is interfaced with a Supervisory water distribution pipe lines which provide drinking
Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, which is water for use by individuals and industry. Although these
used to monitor, control, and archive operating conditions distribution systems provide drinking water to the world,
and collected data continuously. Bioflim samples are very little is known about the physical, chemical, and
collected on coupons [View1–View2] which are set flush biological activities that occur within them. Some of these
with the interior surface of the pipe wall. The coupons may water distribution systems have been in service well over
be removed for sampling and analysis without disrupting one hundred years. DSS-1 has been in operation for
water flow. over three years, as water moves through distribution
The second distribution system (DSS-2) is over 300 systems, it comes into contact with a wide range of
feet long and is a once through system composed of material some of which can cause significant changes
six inch diameter PVC pipe. This unit is being utilized to the quality of the finished water supply. Suspended
to evaluate water quality in a dead end branch of a solids in finished water can settle out under low flow
distribution system and to develop design models for conditions and can be suspended during high flow. Various
water distribution. Both DSS units are located above disinfection agents and water additives react with organic
ground to permit easy access to the entire pipe network. and inorganic materials within a distribution system
generating by-products which may be undesirable in the
water supply. Oxidant resistant microorganisms colonize
Table 1. Operating Parameters Of The Distribution
pipe surfaces producing a complex micro environment
System Simulator
known as ‘‘biofilm’’. Biofilms are highly resistant to
Experimental Test many disinfection methods and techniques. Our research
Parameter Normal Operation Conditions looks at the various experimental test parameters which
Distribution Parallel (6 individual Parallel or series in influence biofilm growth. This work will also help EPA
system distribution system groups of 6, 3, 2, or 1
simulator simulators)
Housing Ductile iron Ductile iron Table 2. Proposed DSS Studies
(Non-lined) (Non-lined) No Title of Proposed Study
Flow 88 gpm or 1 ft/s No Flow to 140 gpm or
0 to 1.6 ft/s 1 Preliminary Studies of Biofilm Formation in Pilot-Scale
Temperature 60 ◦ F (15.5 ◦ C) 35 ◦ F (1.6 ◦ C) to Distribution Systems
Ambient 2 Opportunistic Pathogens in Biofilms
Chemical Free chlorine 1.0 ppm Chemical control as 3 Effect of a Pollution Event on a Simulated Water
control needed Distribution System
pH 7.0 to 7.5 Control/monitor as 4 Impact of Nutrient Removal on Growth Potential for
needed Bacteria
Turbidity < 0.5 NTU Control/monitor as 5 Impact of Alternative Treatment on Biofilm Growth
needed 6 Real-Time Monitoring and Control of Distribution
Water Cincinnati—tap Dechlorinated, Systems
supply water (Chlorinated) deionized, tanked, 7 Effects of pH Changes on Biofilm Growth in a Distribution
surface water System
(River) 8 Bacterial Growth in Distribution Systems

develop a better understanding of the dynamics inside
distribution systems.
RESEARCH GOALS
Fabricate aboveground water distribution system simu-
lator’s which permit easy access and can be operated
under controlled conditions. Conduct studies to develop a
better understanding of the dynamics that occur in drink-
ing water distribution systems. Determine what physical,
chemical, and biological factors influence biofilm growth
within such systems. Develop and test mechanisms for
the enhancement and control of biofilm growth within a
simulated distribution system. Additionally, develop and
evaluate real time monitoring, data collection, and archiv-
ing of water quality parameters within water distribution
systems using remote telemetry. Results will be used to
develop and provide guidance on ways to maintain high
levels of water quality through distribution systems.
DROUGHT IN THE DUST BOWL YEARS
National Drought Mitigation
Center
INTRODUCTION
In the 1930s, drought covered virtually the entire Plains
for almost a decade (1). The drought’s direct effect is
most often remembered as agricultural. Many crops were
damaged by deficient rainfall, high temperatures, and high
winds, as well as insect infestations and dust storms that
accompanied these conditions. The resulting agricultural
depression contributed to the Great Depression’s bank
closures, business losses, increased unemployment, and
other physical and emotional hardships. Although records
focus on other problems, the lack of precipitation would
also have affected wildlife and plant life and would have
created water shortages for domestic needs.
Effects of the Plains drought sent economic and
social ripples throughout the country. For example,
millions of people migrated from the drought areas,
often heading west, in search of work. These new-
comers were often in direct competition for jobs
with longer-established residents, which created con-
flict between the groups. In addition, because of
poverty and high unemployment, migrants added to
local relief efforts, sometimes overburdening relief and
health agencies.
Many circumstances exacerbated the effects of the
drought, among them the Great Depression and economic
overexpansion before the drought, poor land management
practices, and the areal extent and duration of the
drought. [Warrick et al. (2) and Hurt (3) discuss these
issues in greater detail.] The peculiar combination of these
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the
public domain in the United States of America.
DROUGHT IN THE DUST BOWL YEARS 511
circumstances and the severity and areal coverage of the
event played a part in making the 1930s drought the
widely accepted drought of record for the United States.
To cope with and recover from the drought, people relied
on ingenuity and resilience, as well as relief programs
from state and federal governments. Despite all efforts,
many people were not able to make a living in drought-
stricken regions and were forced to migrate to other
areas in search of a new livelihood. It is not possible
to count all the costs associated with the drought of the
1930s drought, but one estimate by Warrick (1) claims
that financial assistance from the government may have
been as high as $1 billion (in 1930s dollars) by the end
of the drought. Fortunately, several lessons were learned
that were used in reducing the vulnerability of the regions
to future droughts.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND OVERCAPITALIZATION
In the early 1920s, farmers saw several opportunities
for increasing their production. New technology and crop
varieties were reducing the time and costs-per-acre of
farming, which provided a great incentive for agricultural
expansion. This expansion was also necessary to pay for
expensive, newly developed equipment (such as listers and
plows) that was often purchased on credit, and to offset
low crop prices after World War I.
When the national economy went into decline in the late
1920s because of the Great Depression, agriculture was
even more adversely affected. In addition, a record wheat
crop in 1931 sent crop prices even lower. These lower prices
meant that farmers needed to cultivate more acreage,
including poorer farmlands, or change crop varieties to
produce enough grain to meet their required equipment
and farm payments.
When drought began in the early 1930s, it worsened
these poor economic conditions. The depression and
drought hit farmers on the Great Plains the hardest.
Many of these farmers were forced to seek government
assistance. A 1937 bulletin by the Works Progress
Administration reported that 21% of all rural families
in the Great Plains were receiving federal emergency
relief (4). However, even with government help, many
farmers could not maintain their operations and were
forced to leave their land. Some voluntarily deeded their
farms to creditors, others faced foreclosure by banks,
and still others had to leave temporarily to search for
work to provide for their families. In fact, at the peak of
farm transfers in 1933–34, nearly 1 in 10 farms changed
possession, with half of those being involuntary (from a
combination of the depression and drought).
POOR LAND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
A number of poor land management practices in the Great
Plains region increased the vulnerability of the area before
the 1930s drought. Some of the land use patterns and
cultivation methods in the region can be traced back
to the settlement of the Great Plains nearly 100 years
earlier. At that time, little was known of the region’s
512 DROUGHT IN THE DUST BOWL YEARS
climate. Several expeditions had explored the region, but
they were not studying the region for its agricultural
potential, and, furthermore, their findings went into
government reports that were not readily available to
the general public (5). Misleading information, however,
was plentiful. ‘‘Boosters’’ of the region, hoping to promote
settlement, put forth glowing but inaccurate accounts of
the Great Plains’ agricultural potential. In addition to this
inaccurate information, most settlers had little money
or other assets, and their farming experience was based
on conditions in the more humid eastern United States,
so the crops and cultivation practices they chose often
were not suitable for the Great Plains. But the earliest
settlements occurred during a wet cycle, and the first
crops flourished, so settlers were encouraged to continue
practices that would later have to be abandoned. When
droughts and harsh winters inevitably occurred, there
was widespread economic hardship and human suffering,
but the early settlers put these episodes behind them once
the rains returned. Although adverse conditions forced
many settlers to return to the eastern United States, even
more continued to come west. The idea that the climate of
the Great Plains was changing, particularly in response
to human settlement, was popularly accepted in the last
half of the 19th century. It was reflected in legislative acts
such as the Timber Culture Act of 1873, which was based
on the belief that if settlers planted trees they would be
encouraging rainfall, and it was not until the 1890s that
this idea was finally abandoned (6). Although repeated
droughts tested settlers and local/state governments, the
recurrence of periods of plentiful rainfall seemed to delay
recognition of the need for changes in cultivation and land
use practices.
Several actions in the 1920s also increased the region’s
vulnerability to drought. Low crop prices and high
machinery costs (discussed above) meant that farmers
needed to cultivate more land to produce enough to
meet their required payments. Since most of the best
farming areas were already being used, poorer farmlands
were increasingly used. Farming submarginal lands often
had negative results, such as soil erosion and nutrient
leaching. By using these areas, farmers were increasing
the likelihood of crop failures, which increased their
vulnerability to drought.
These economic conditions also created pressure on
farmers to abandon soil conservation practices to reduce
expenditures. Furthermore, during the 1920s, many
farmers switched from the lister to the more efficient
one-way disc plow, which also greatly increased the risk
of blowing soil. Basically, reductions in soil conservation
measures and the encroachment onto poorer lands
made the farming community more vulnerable to wind
erosion, soil moisture depletion, depleted soil nutrients,
and drought.
DROUGHT DURATION AND EXTENT
Although the 1930s drought is often referred to as if
it were one episode, there were at least four distinct
drought events: 1930–31, 1934, 1936, and 1939–40 (7).
These events occurred in such rapid succession that
affected regions were not able to recover adequately
before another drought began. Historical maps of U.S.
climate divisions and graphs of U.S. river basins reflect
this situation.
COPING WITH AND RECOVERING FROM DROUGHT
During the 1930s, many measures were undertaken
to relieve the direct impacts of droughts and to
reduce the region’s vulnerability to the dry conditions.
Many of these measures were initiated by the federal
government, a relatively new practice. Before the 1930s
drought, federal aid had generally been withheld in
emergency situations in favor of individual and self-
reliant approaches. This began to change with the
development of the Great Depression in the late 1920s
and the 1933 inauguration of President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. The depression helped ‘‘soften deep-rooted,
hard-line attitudes of free enterprise, individualism, and
the passive role of the government’’, thus paving the way
for Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, which in turn provided
a framework for drought relief programs for the Great
Plains (1).
Warrick et al. (2) describe these drought relief pro-
grams, which are credited with saving many livelihoods
throughout the drought periods. The programs had a vari-
ety of goals, all of which were aimed at the reduction of
drought impacts and vulnerability:
• Providing emergency supplies, cash, and livestock
feed and transport to maintain the basic functioning
of livelihoods and farms/ranches.
• Establishing health care facilities and supplies to
meet emergency medical needs.
• Establishing government-based markets for farm
goods, higher tariffs, and loan funds for farm market
maintenance and business rehabilitation.
• Providing the supplies, technology, and technical
advice necessary to research, implement, and pro-
mote appropriate land management strategies.
As important as these programs may have been, the
survival of a majority of the families and enterprises
undoubtedly rested solely with their perseverance and
integrity. Whether they stayed or moved into the drought
regions or migrated to other areas in hopes of a better
life, families encountered new hardships and obstacles
that would require ingenuity, resilience, and humility.
Those who remained in the drought regions were forced
to endure severe dust storms and their health effects,
diminished incomes, animal infestations, and the physical
and emotional stress over their uncertain futures. Humor
helped; tales about birds flying backward to keep from
getting sand in their eyes, housewives scouring pots and
pans by holding them up to keyholes for a sandblasting,
and children who had never seen rain were among the
favorite stories of Dust Bowl inhabitants. In the end, it
was a combination of willpower, stamina, humor, pride,
and, above all, optimism that enabled many to survive the
Dust Bowl. These qualities are succinctly expressed in the

comments of one contemporary Kansan: ‘‘We have faith in
the future. We are here to stay’’ (quoted in Ref. 3).
The 1930s drought and its associated impacts finally
began to abate during spring 1938. By 1941, most areas
of the country were receiving near-normal rainfalls. These
rains, along with the outbreak of World War II, alleviated
many of the domestic economic problems associated with
the 1930s. In fact, the new production demands and
positive climatic conditions brought the United States
into a rapid economic boom.
Even though short-term conditions seemed to be
relatively stable, there were some drawbacks to this
production growth. One drawback (described in Ref. 3)
was that the start of World War II shifted remaining
funds and priorities away from drought-related programs.
Men were taken off work programs to enter the armed
forces and to produce for the war effort. Moreover, items
such as gasoline and replacement parts were redirected
from federal drought and conservation programs to the
war efforts. This meant that conservation programs and
research were significantly reduced during this period.
Another drawback was that with the return of the rains,
many people soon forgot about conservation programs and
measures implemented during the 1930s droughts. This
led to a return to some of the inappropriate farming and
grazing practices that made many regions so vulnerable
to drought in the 1930s.
1930s DROUGHT COSTS
Although the 1988–89 drought was the most economically
devastating natural disaster in the history of the United
States (7), a close second is undoubtedly the series of
droughts that affected large portions of the United States
in the 1930s. Determining the direct and indirect costs
associated with this period of droughts is a difficult task
because of the broad impacts of drought, the event’s close
association with the Great Depression, the fast revival
of the economy with the start of World War II, and the
lack of adequate economic models for evaluating losses at
that time. However, broad calculations and estimates can
provide valuable generalizations of the economic impact of
the 1930s drought.
Overall Drought Costs
In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA)
reported that drought was the principal reason for
economic relief assistance in the Great Plains region
during the 1930s (4). Federal aid to the drought-affected
states was first given in 1932, but the first funds
marked specifically for drought relief were not released
until the fall of 1933. In all, assistance may have
reached $1 billion (in 1930s dollars) by the end of the
drought (1).
According to the WPA, three-fifths of all first-time rural
relief cases in the Great Plains area were directly related
to drought, with a disproportionate amount of cases being
farmers (68%) and especially tenant farmers (70% of the
68%). However, it is not known how many of the remaining
cases (32%) were indirectly affected by drought. The WPA
DROUGHT IN THE DUST BOWL YEARS 513
report also noted that 21% of all rural families in the
Great Plains area were receiving federal emergency relief
by 1936 (4); the number was as high as 90% in hard-hit
counties (1). Thus, even though the exact economic losses
are not known for this time period, they were substantial
enough to cause widespread economic disruption that
affected the entire nation.
LESSONS LEARNED: THE LEGACY OF THE 1930s
DROUGHT
The magnitude of the droughts of the 1930s, combined
with the Great Depression, led to unprecedented govern-
ment relief efforts. Congressional actions in 1934 alone
accounted for relief expenditures of $525 million (8); the
total cost (social, economic, and environmental) would be
impossible to determine.
If the Roosevelt era marked the beginning of large-scale
aid, it also ushered in some of the first long-term, proactive
programs to reduce future vulnerability to drought. It was
in these years, for example, that the Soil Conservation
Service (SCS)—now the Natural Resources Conservation
Service—began to stress soil conservation measures.
Through their efforts, the first soil conservation districts
came into being, and demonstration projects were carried
out to show the benefits of practices such as terracing and
contouring (for a discussion of the activities of the SCS
during this period, see Ref. 3).
Warrick et al. (2) note that the proactive measures
continued in the years following the drought: conservation
practices and irrigation increased, farm sizes grew larger,
crop diversity increased, federal crop insurance was
established, and the regional economy was diversified.
Many other proactive measures taken after the 1930s
drought also reduced rural and urban vulnerability to
drought, including new or enlarged reservoirs, improved
domestic water systems, changes in farm policies,
new insurance and aid programs, and removal of
some of the most sensitive agricultural lands from
production (7).
Problems remained, but these programs and activ-
ities would play a fundamental role in reducing the
vulnerability of the nation to the forthcoming 1950s
drought. Although a larger area was affected during the
1950s drought, the conservation techniques that many
farmers implemented in the intervening years helped
prevent conditions from reaching the severity of the
1930s drought.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Warrick, R.A. 1980. Drought in the Great Plains: A Case
Study of Research on Climate and Society in the USA. In
J. Ausubel and A.K. Biswas (eds.). Climatic Constraints and
Human Activities, pp. 93–123. IIASA Proceedings Series, Vol.
10. Pergamon Press, New York.
2. Warrick, R.A.; P.B. Trainer; E.J. Baker; and W. Brinkman.
1975. Drought Hazard in the United States: A Research
Assessment. Program on Technology, Environment and Man
Monograph #NSF-RA-E-75-004, Institute of Behavioral Sci-
ence, University of Colorado, Boulder.
514 DROUGHT MANAGEMENT PLANNING
3. Hurt, D.R. 1981. An Agricultural and Social History of the
Dust Bowl. Nelson Hall, Chicago.
4. Link, I.; T.J. Woofter, Jr., and C.C. Taylor. 1937. Research
Bulletin: Relief and Rehabilitation in the Drought Area. Works
Progress Administration, Washington, DC.
5. Fite, G.C. 1966. The Farmer’s Frontier, 1865–1900. Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, New York.
6. White, R. 1991. ‘‘It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own’’: A
History of the American West. University of Oklahoma Press,
Norman.
7. Riebsame, W.E.; S.A. Changnon, Jr.; and T.R. Carl. 1991.
Drought and Natural Resources Management in the United
States: Impacts and Implications of the 1987–89 Drought.
Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.
8. United States House of Representatives. 1934. Relief of the
drought area. Communication from the President of the
United States, 73d Congress, 2d Session, Document No. 398,
Washington, DC.
OTHER RESOURCES
Dust Storms and Their Damage. Photos from the collection of the
Wind Erosion Research Unit of USDA’s Agricultural Research
Service at Kansas State University.
The Dust Bowl (photos). A collection of 20 photos for sale from
The Social Studies Web.
American Memory from the Library of Congress. A multi-format
look at daily life in Farm Security Administration migrant work
camps in central California, 1940 and 1941.
Weedpatch Camp. The story of the Arvin Federal Government
Camp, immortalized as ‘‘Weedpatch Camp’’ in Steinbeck’s
Grapes of Wrath.
Dust storm footage. A short film clip of a dust storm during
the 1930s. From the website of the USDA/ARS Wind Erosion
Research Unit at Kansas State University.
Surviving the Dust Bowl. The website of the 1998 Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS) film ‘‘Surviving the Dust Bowl’’.
Provides a good background on the people and events of the
1930s Dust Bowl.
1930s Dust Bowl. Excerpts from ‘‘The Dust Bowl, Men, Dirt and
Depression’’ by Paul Bonnifield. On the Cimarron Heritage
Center (Boise City, Oklahoma) website.
Woody Guthrie Dust Bowl Ballads. Discussion and analysis of
Guthrie’s ‘‘Dust Bowl Ballads’’ recording.
America from the Great Depression to World War II. Photos from
the Farm Security Administration—Office of War Information
Collection, 1935–1945.
The Plow that Broke the Plains. The story behind the 1936
documentary made for the Farm Security Administration on
the destruction and suffering associated with drought in the
early 1930s.
DROUGHT MANAGEMENT PLANNING
NEIL S. GRIGG
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
It is impossible to ‘‘manage’’ a naturally occurring
drought, so ‘‘drought management’’ refers to managing
resources, including water, to mitigate the adverse effects
of droughts, which are certain to occur. Other resources
that can be managed are food supplies, including animal
feed, public facilities of various kinds, and economic
resources to aid businesses, farmers, and citizens.
As ‘‘creeping disasters,’’ droughts are easy to ignore
until too late, thus presenting a significant risk to water
resources managers. The dilemma is that to prepare
for them might be expensive and require seldom-used
facilities, but without preparation, water supplies might
run out on rare occasions. For this reason, drought
management planning presents a challenge to water
agencies, as well as to other governmental and private
sector organizations.
Drought has two forms: a period without enough
rain and a period of shortage: each requires drought
management planning. A period without enough rain is a
‘‘meteorologic drought,’’ and leads to shortages, which are
called by names such as ‘‘hydrologic,’’ ‘‘agricultural,’’ and
‘‘socioeconomic’’ drought.
Drought management planning is a form of contingency
planning that answers the question ‘‘what do we do
if a drought occurs?’’ As in other forms of contingency
planning, the process is to assess the threat, identify
the vulnerable parts of systems, and take measures to
prepare, mitigate, respond, and recover from the impact
of a drought, should one occur.
Failures in water supply can have serious consequences
for cities, industries, and other water users such as
irrigation, hydropower, recreation, and wildlife. The
primary impact of drought is due to real or feared
interruption of supplies because water supply is critical
to the economy and the natural environment. This risk
increases with the interdependence and vulnerability
of water systems, environmental stakes are also high.
Drought is a serious threat to food supplies and
farm income, especially in nations where food supplies
are marginal.
Assessing the threat of drought requires knowledge
of the security of supplies or the probability that a raw
water supply system will run out of water. This is usually
estimated for individual water agencies in terms of the
return period of the drought planned for or the annual
probability of running short. The concepts of return period
and failure probability are in wide use, but for droughts
they are complex because drought duration, system yield,
and return period must be considered.
The concept of ‘‘safe yield’’ is used to describe the
reliability of a water system, another measure of security.
To estimate safe yield requires analysis of components
and the systems that deliver water to users. Vulnerability
analysis requires assessing of all possible modes of failure,
not only hydrologic failure. For example, if a dam requires
emptying for repair, supplies may run short from lack of
storage, even when they are available from precipitation.
Examples of measures to prepare, mitigate, respond,
and recover from drought impacts are shown in Table 1 (1).
Drought response plans are usually prepared by
water management organizations to anticipate drought
and plan activities to take place after a drought
occurs. These are custom-tailored to the needs of each

Table 1. Drought Planning
Supply Augmentation Demand Reduction Impact Minimization
New sources Legal restrictions Forecasting
Water storage Pricing Mutual aid
Reuse of water Devices to limit use Insurance
organization but generally include the usual contents
of emergency response plans, such as assessment of
the hazard, identification of vulnerable components,
mitigation measures, plans to meet critical water needs,
arrangements for mutual aid, team organization and roles,
and special conditions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Grigg, N.S. and Vlachos, E.C. (1993). Drought and water-
supply management: roles and responsibilities. J. Water
Resour. Plann. Manage. American Society of Civil Engineers.
September/October.
READING LIST
Wilhite, D.A., Easterling, W.E. and Wood, D.A. (Eds.) (1987).
Planning for Drought: Toward a Reduction in Societal
Vulnerability, Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
DROUGHT AND WATER SUPPLY
MANAGEMENT
NEIL S. GRIGG
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
Drought is a normal, albeit extreme, aspect of hydrologic
variation, so it should be considered when making plans
for water. Planning for water supply management involves
both supply augmentation and demand management.
Supply augmentation can involve new supplies or
extending use of existing supplies.
During drought, making water available to meet
requirements of people, business, and the environment
is critical. As explained in the article on ‘‘Drought
Management Planning,’’ preparing for drought requires
contingency planning to assure adequacy of water
supplies, and management of available water supplies
during drought is the key element of drought response.
Thus, effective water resources management requires
actions that assure water availability during drought as
well as normal times.
Technologies and methods for providing water supplies
go back to early Rome, which brought in water supplies by
aqueducts. Water supply systems in the United States date
from early settlements, which used spring water pumped
through bored logs. Some early pumps were horse-driven,
followed later by steam power.
Water supply systems have three subsystems: source of
supply, treatment and distribution, and delivery of enough
DROUGHT AND WATER SUPPLY MANAGEMENT 515
water of high quality at sufficient pressure for intended
uses. A percentage of the water is normally unaccounted
for, mainly through leakage and other losses. Water for fire
fighting must also, be provided. Providing enough water
requires volumes of delivery to meet needs reliably during
peak demand periods and during drought.
The required quantities of water can be estimated
from statistics of water use for domestic, commercial,
and industrial uses. These vary widely, depending on
many socioeconomic factors. Average per capita use of
water in the United States, including all uses, varies
from about 100–200 gallons per capita per day (gpcd)
(378–756 liters per capita per day). The highest rates are
normally in dry regions, where water supplies are used
for lawn irrigation. In highly concentrated urban areas,
water uses may be mostly inside apartment buildings
and in commercial facilities and may be close to 100 gpcd
(378 liters per capita per day), without any requirement
for lawn irrigation. In other countries, water demands
may be less, depending on socioeconomic variables. In a
developing country city, use might be much less than levels
in the United States, and water may not be available to
all residents.
Sources of freshwater supply include surface water,
groundwater, and reclaimed waters. Surface water can
include stored water in reservoirs or direct diversions from
streams. Typical infrastructure components include dams,
tunnels, outlet tubes, canals, gates and controls, spillways,
and support structures. Groundwater sources include
springs, wells, infiltration galleries, and aquifers that store
recharged water. Infrastructure components include wells,
casings, pumping systems, piping, housing, and other
support facilities. Given the increasing restrictions on the
development of surface water, groundwater development
is receiving more attention, including the implementation
of aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) systems.
In special cases, rainwater can be caught on roofs and
stored in cisterns. This type of local supply system is found
mostly in developing countries and in special, remote
locations where centralized systems are not possible.
Bottled water is an increasingly popular source, and point-
of-use treatment systems are becoming more popular.
Demand reduction can be legal, physical, or voluntary.
Drought plans normally contain provisions to restrict use
during times of shortage. Physical controls can include
reduced pressures and requirements for devices to impose
water conservation. Voluntary systems rely primarily on
education and calls for citizenship.
As population increases and environmental water needs
are more recognized, it becomes more difficult to find new
sources of supply. Therefore, innovative approaches being
studied include
• dual use of water where reclaimed and impaired
waters are used for nonpotable applications
• conservation systems, where ‘‘new’’ sources are
created by saving water
• innovative storage systems, such as aquifer–stor-
age–recovery (ASR) systems
516 ASSESSMENT OF ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS IN WATER-LIMITED ENVIRONMENTS
• conjunctive use, where water from different sources,
such as surface and groundwater, are man-
aged jointly
• reuse, where wastewater is treated and used again
in one form or another
• point-of-use treatment systems
• bottled water
ASSESSMENT OF ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS IN
WATER-LIMITED ENVIRONMENTS
RANDALL T. RYTI
JAMES T. MARKWEISE
Neptune and Company, Inc.
Los Alamos, New Mexico
We consider that water-limited environments include arid
lands that have less than 250 millimeters (10 inches) of
annual precipitation and semiarid lands that have annual
precipitation between 250 and 500 millimeters (1). This
paper discusses the characteristics of arid and semiarid
environments, approaches for evaluating the potential eco-
logical impacts from anthropogenic contaminant sources,
and the issues that make such assessments complex in
arid and semiarid environments.
Precipitation defines water-limited environments, and
plants and animals have developed specialized adapta-
tions to the paucity/lack of water. For example, avian
adaptation to desert environments is characterized by
decreased metabolic rates and minimized water loss (2).
Organisms have adapted to more efficient use of limited
water quantities by behaviorally and/or physiologically
optimizing their ability to acquire and retain water. For
example, some beetles meet all their water needs by drink-
ing the dew that collects on their bodies. Another strategy
for surviving in dry environments includes adaptations to
exploit periodic monsoons that are characteristic of arid
and semiarid regions and involves rapid population growth
to exploit periods of abundant resources (3).
Precipitation can be large, but it is infrequent.
The spatial scale for precipitation also varies from
thunderstorms that may impact a portion of a watershed
to larger storm systems that impact an entire region. The
predictability of storms varies widely between seasons
or years for water-limited environments. Terms like
intermittent or interrupted have been used to describe flow
in water-limited environments. The pattern and intensity
of flow change as a result of prolonged periods of wet or
dry conditions in these environments.
Effluent and surface water runoff from residential,
commercial, or agricultural activities are frequently more
predictable sources of water in dry environments. Efflu-
ent/runoff is typically laden with metals and organic
chemicals, and, it has been demonstrated, affects the
composition and abundance of aquatic organisms in receiv-
ing streams (4). Wastewater effluent from anthropogenic
sources may be inserted as a point source (i.e., an out-
fall pipe), or runoff may originate from nonpoint sources
(e.g., distributed spatially from agricultural application).
These types of contaminant sources frequently overlap
and confound the interpretation and mitigation of ecologi-
cal effects.
Directly related to effluent/runoff is the source of
water used by people in water-limited environments.
Two common water sources are impoundments along
major river systems or pumping of groundwater. When
dams are introduced, flow regimes in these water-limited
environments change and lead to dramatic changes in the
species in areas of modified flow regimes (5).
In addition to anthropogenic influences on water
availability and water quality, the physical environment of
arid/semiarid land potentially affects water resources. In
the arid southwest United States, closed hydrologic basins
exist; salt flats are one resultant landscape feature of
closed basins. Surface depressions may also accumulate
water during intense precipitation, and evaporation
concentrates chemicals in these ponds during dry periods.
This is in contrast to moist environments, where water
transport of contaminants generally leads to diluted
concentrations. Wind-driven contaminant transport is
also more important in dry environments where the soil
and rock lie exposed to wind erosion because of limited
plant coverage.
Dry environments are also more susceptible to
disturbance due to several factors. One is decreased
resilience to stressors because of the extreme nature of the
environment. Aridity in itself can be a stressor for plants
and animals, and, it has been shown, influences species
composition (6) and population characteristics (7). Adding
anthropogenic stressors to this environment (e.g., through
pollution) may decrease a population’s viability if it is
already near the individual tolerance limits for surviving
in the dry environment. For example, Sjursen and
others (8) showed that exposure to organic chemicals could
reduce drought tolerance in soil invertebrates. In addition,
populations depending on rainfall for reproduction could
be locally exterminated if their source of water (e.g.,
an ephemeral rain pool) were impacted with chemical
toxicants. Soils in arid environments also develop more
slowly than in moist areas, recover from stress slowly (9),
and are more susceptible to erosion after physical
disturbance.
Adverse effects contributing to impacts can be defined
as ‘‘Changes that alter valued structural or functional
attributes of ecological entities . . .’’ (10). Effects can be
assessed for ecological entities on any scale of biological
organization, including genetic, individual, population,
community, and ecosystem levels. ‘‘An evaluation of
adversity may include a consideration of the type,
intensity, and scale of the effect as well as the potential for
recovery’’ (10). These evaluations are typically categorized
as either stressor-based or effects-based assessments.
Stressor-based assessments are initiated to evaluate
physical, chemical, or biological entities that can induce
an adverse response (11). Effects-based assessments are
initiated to determine the cause(s), once an adverse impact
is observed.
Tools to evaluate and manage environmental effects
come from a number of disciplines. Resource management
fields (e.g., forestry, wildlife management) develop plans
 ASSESSMENT OF ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS IN WATER-LIMITED ENVIRONMENTS
to manage or mitigate effects of logging, hunting, and
fishing. Conservation biology develops plans to mitigate
more general human impacts on the environment. For
regulatory agencies, ecological risk assessment has been
the tool used to evaluate ecological effects of planned or
historic actions (10).
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (a.k.a.
Superfund) started developing guidance on ecological risk
assessment in the late 1980s. This process culminated
in the Risk Assessment Forum process for ecological
risk assessment (12). Parallel to these efforts was the
Ecological Risk Assessment Guidance for Superfund or
ERAGS (11).
ERAGS starts by identifying the ecological entity that
needs to be protected (the assessment endpoint). By
defining an adverse effect, the measures used to evaluate
effects will be identified. ERAGS encourages using
multiple lines of evidence, including field information,
laboratory studies, and literature studies for each
measure. Effects are characterized through lines of
evidence (13,14), and the weight of the evidence dictates
how one manages adverse effects.
The complications from assessments in water-limited
environments are often related to the spatial and temporal
scales of the assessment. For example, one may be
concerned about potential adverse ecological impacts
on aquatic and terrestrial receptors of effluent releases
to a stream from an industrial facility. One set of
considerations is the physical environment and other
anthropogenic impacts on the stream. As discussed before,
flow in the stream may be expected to change dramatically
as seasonal and annual changes in precipitation occur.
Altered flow regimes and other anthropogenic impacts on
this stream are also expected. These considerations may
help select appropriate assessment endpoints.
The abundance of bats in roosts near a stream
near an industrial facility could be selected as an
assessment endpoint. However, bats have large foraging
ranges and are likely to be impacted by contaminants
from multiple sources. In addition, bats are migratory
and could be exposed to contaminants from distant
locations. Another assessment end point for this example
could be abundance of benthic macroinvertebrates. This
choice has the advantage of greater site fidelity and
thus minimizes confounding effects from neighboring
anthropogenic releases. Benthic macroinvertebrates also
lend themselves to direct experimentation as a line
of evidence without some of the ethical and logistical
problems of vertebrates.
Another complication of adverse effects assessments in
water-limited environments is the availability of appro-
priate toxicity bioassays for taxa commonly found in
such environments (15). This problem is more obvious
for terrestrial receptors. For example, earthworms are
the most commonly used soil animals in soil toxicity
bioassays. However, earthworms are not representative
of the more important detritivores in arid/semiarid envi-
ronments (mites). This is an area of active research for
more biologically relevant toxicity testing organisms for
water-limited environments.
517
Last, variation in timing and amount of precipitation
complicates some empirical evaluation of ecological effects.
For example, the phenology of most organisms in arid
and semiarid environments is tied to precipitation, and
most studies of adverse effects are tied to government
funding cycles. This is why some empirical studies of
biota abundance and diversity are dismissed for practical
reasons and laboratory studies of toxicity are emphasized.
In some cases, a field experiment where precipitation is
artificially simulated is another option, if time represents
a logistical constraint.
Acknowledgments
We thank two peer reviewers, R. Mirenda and M. Tardiff, for their
constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Walker, A.S. (1997). Deserts: Geology and Resources. Online
Edition. United States Geological Survey, Washington, DC.
2. Tieleman, B.I. and Williams, J.B. (2000). The adjustment
of avian metabolic rates and water fluxes to desert
environments. Physiol. Biochem. Zool. 73: 461–479.
3. van der Valk, H. (1997). Community structure and dynamics
in desert ecosystems: potential implications for insecticide
risk assessment. Arch. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. 32: 11–21.
4. Ganasan, V. and Hughes, R.M. (1998). Application of an index
of biological integrity (IBI) to fish assemblages of the rivers
Khan and Kshipra (Madhya Pradesh), India. Freshwater Biol.
40: 367–383.
5. Saunders, D.L., Meeuwig, J.J., and Vincent, A.C.J. (2002).
Freshwater protected areas: strategies for conservation.
Conserv. Biol. 16: 30–41.
6. Tsialtas, J.T., Handley, L.L., Kassioumi, M.T., Veresoglou,
D.S., and Gagianas, A.A. (2001). Interspecific variation in
potential water-use efficiency and its relation to plant species
abundance in a water-limited grassland. Functional Ecol. 15:
605–614.
7. Spinks, A.C., Bennett, N.C., and Jarvis, J.U.M. (2000). A
comparison of the ecology of two populations of the common
mole-rat, Cryptomys hottentotus hottentotus: the effect of
aridity on food, foraging and body mass. Oecologia 125:
341–349.
8. Sjursen, H., Sverdrup, L.E., and Krogh, P.H. (2001). Effects
of polycyclic aromatic compounds on the drought tolerance of
Folsomia fimerata (Collembola, Isotomidae). Environ. Toxicol.
Chem. 20: 2899–2902.
9. Belnap, J. (1993). Recovery rates of cryptobiotic crusts: inoc-
ulant use and assessment methods. Great Basin Naturalist
53: 89–95.
10. Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. (1999).
Ecological Risk in the Federal Government. National Science
and Technology Council, Washington, DC, CENR/5-99/001.
11. United States Environmental Protection Agency. (1997).
Ecological Risk Assessment Guidance for Superfund: Process
for Designing and Conducting Ecological Risk Assessments.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Interim Final Report.
Emergency Response Team, Edison, NJ.
12. United States Environmental Protection Agency. (1998).
Guidelines for Ecological Risk Assessment. Risk Assessment
Forum, EPA/630/R-95/002F, Final. U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Washington, DC.
518 REACHING OUT: PUBLIC EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN GROUNDWATER PROTECTION
13. Menzie, C. et al. (1996). Report of the Massachusetts weight-
of-evidence workgroup: a weight-of-evidence approach for
evaluating ecological risks. Hum. Ecol. Risk Assessment 2:
277–304.
14. United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2000).
Stressor Identification Guidance Document. U.S. Environ-
mental Protection Agency, Office of Water and Office of
Research and Development, Washington, DC.
15. Markwiese, J.T., Ryti, R.T., Hooten, M.M., Michael, D.I., and
Hlohowskyj, I. (2001). Toxicity bioassays for ecological risk
assessment in arid and semiarid ecosystems. Rev. Environ.
Contam. Toxicol. 168: 43–98.
REACHING OUT: PUBLIC EDUCATION AND
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN
GROUNDWATER PROTECTION
JENNIFER NELSON
The Groundwater Foundation
Lincoln, Nebraska
INTRODUCTION
Throughout its existence, The Groundwater Foundation
(TGF) has identified public education and community
involvement as vital ingredients to successful groundwater
protection activities. TGF is an international nonprofit
organization based in Lincoln, Nebraska, with a mission
to educate and motivate the public to care about and
for groundwater. Groundwater provides drinking water to
nearly half of the U.S. population (1) and is critical for
other economic uses such as irrigation, agriculture, and
industry. Unfortunately, because it is a hidden resource,
the general public knows comparatively little about
groundwater or how to protect it. Providing education
to stakeholders about the value of groundwater is an
excellent way to illustrate how individual and group
decisions and activities can have a direct impact on the
quality and quantity of local groundwater resources.
TGF was founded in 1985 and since has held that
people could learn about groundwater in ways that
were both scientifically accurate and user friendly. TGF
works to make groundwater science accessible to and
understandable by people everywhere, allowing these
educated people to become active partners in protecting the
environmental and economic vitality of their communities
by protecting local and regional groundwater resources.
Groundwater Guardian is a program of TGF that pro-
vides a framework for community action and groundwater
protection by providing recognition, support, and lessons
learned. Over 300 communities from the United States
and Canada have participated in Groundwater Guardian
since the program began in 1994. Groundwater Guardian
relies on voluntary efforts spearheaded at the local level
to effectively address local groundwater-related concerns
and issues through the creation of a diverse local team,
which focuses the interests and resources of a community
on the importance of long-term groundwater protection.
Groundwater Guardian serves as both an organizing
and planning tool for communities interested in ground-
water protection. A community within the program is
broadly defined—it can be a city, county, watershed area,
school, or other area where there are people committed to
learning about and protecting groundwater. To enter the
program, communities first form a team of diverse stake-
holders, including citizens, local government, educators,
business, and/or agriculture. The team is the heart of the
program and is designed to be broad-based to draw on the
different resources and expertise of various sectors of the
community. These stakeholders who represent key local
groups are in an excellent position to identify a commu-
nity’s groundwater problems, develop an education/action
plan to address these issues, and document their progress
and success.
After a team is formed, local issues of concern are
identified and then addressed through activities address-
ing public education and awareness, pollution prevention,
public policy, conservation, and best management prac-
tices. Teams submit plans for these activities in the
beginning of the year and report back to TGF at the
end of the year on progress made. Groundwater Guardian
designation is awarded based on the information provided
in these plans and reports.
USING EDUCATION AS A STARTING POINT
FOR GROUNDWATER PROTECTION
Groundwater Guardian teams generally start with some
sort of public education campaign to build awareness for
future protection activities. This education may take the
form of a youth festival, newspaper column, water bill
insert, public service announcement, website, brochure,
seminar, public meeting, or other means. Education is a
popular starting point for most Groundwater Guardian
teams because:
• Education is viewed as an accessible, common activity
that invites broad community participation.
• Goals and objectives can easily be set and achieved
and give community efforts valuable success to
build upon.
• Awareness and understanding are the basis for
future activity, for adults and children alike.
• Children are likely to communicate with and involve
parents, relatives, neighbors, and friends with
successful and memorable education experiences (2).
Public education allows a progressionary approach
to groundwater resources protection. It first engages
community residents to know that their individual actions
and practices, like disposing of motor oil properly, using
only appropriate amounts of fertilizer, and taking shorter
showers, can have an impact on local groundwater quality
and quantity. It then also builds a base of knowledge for
future support of protection activities. Residents who know
that their drinking water is supplied by groundwater,
pumped from wells in a specific area, are more likely
to support efforts such as wellhead protection and the
implementation of best management practices that protect
that source than a resident who simply thinks that
drinking water comes from the tap. Education creates
a foundation for action.
 REACHING OUT: PUBLIC EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN GROUNDWATER PROTECTION
VALUE OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
IN GROUNDWATER PROTECTION
In TGF’s experiences, community involvement is neces-
sary to successful, meaningful, and long-lasting ground-
water protection, which provides numerous benefits to all
community residents, including:
• Protecting Natural Resources. Groundwater is some-
times referred to as the environmental ‘‘bottom line’’
as an indicator of how successful all environmental
protection activities are. By monitoring groundwa-
ter quality and quantity, communities can see the
impacts of their groundwater and other natural
resource protection activities. By protecting ground-
water resources, communities are often also protect-
ing a variety of other natural resources, such as
wildlife habitat and wetlands.
• Safeguarding Public Health. Safe groundwater is
directly related to good health. Contaminated drink-
ing water can cause illness, disease, or even death.
By protecting groundwater supplies that are used
for drinking water, communities are protecting their
own health.
• Developing Economic Vitality. Communities depend
on local groundwater supplies not only as a source of
drinking water but to provide businesses and agri-
cultural producers with an input to create a market
good. Without clean, safe and plentiful groundwater
supplies, communities across the country would face
serious challenges to their long-term sustainability.
• Building Community Capacity. Communities that
make the commitment to groundwater are the very
same communities who are working to be innovative
and strive for long-term growth and sustainability of
their community. Because of the variety of effective
groundwater protection activities and options avail-
able, communities working to protect groundwater
are also building their capacity to address other com-
munity issues, such as growth, strategic planning,
solid waste, transportation, and economics.
• Sustaining Supplies. As populations continue to
grow, increased demand is placed on groundwater
supplies. Communities that are educated about
the value of local groundwater resources are
much more likely to manage those resources in a
sustainable way.
• Sharing Responsibility. Whether it is for drinking or
as an economic input, all those within a community
use and benefit from groundwater. Consequently,
protecting groundwater supplies is best done by
a diverse team of community representatives who
share a variety of viewpoints but are working
toward a common goal. By sharing the responsibility
for groundwater protection, strong communities
will protect groundwater supplies for generations
to come.
STRATEGIES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY
INVOLVEMENT IN GROUNDWATER PROTECTION
There are numerous options for public education and
community involvement for local groundwater protection.
519
Protection efforts implemented by Groundwater Guardian
communities often begin with public education activi-
ties, including:
• Organizing a community or school water festival
• Launching a public awareness campaign
• Distributing educational materials about local
groundwater issues
• Holding public meetings
• Planning field trips
Communities often find success with these relatively
easy to implement, yet high impact, public education
activities and can then move on to more challenging efforts,
such as:
Conservation
Endorse and encourage the use of water-saving devices
Encourage sustainable lawn care and garden-
ing practices
Work with the local water department to foster
conservation awareness
Pollution Prevention
Inventory local pollution sources
Properly close abandoned wells
Recognize local pollution sources and identify
possible solutions
Public Policy
Establish and manage wellhead protection areas
Support compliance with the Safe Drinking
Water Act
Encourage federal, state, and local interagency
coordination
Develop a community comprehensive plan
Best Management Practices (BMPs)
Encourage the adoption of BMPs in rural, urban, and
commercial areas
Adopt land use protection measures
Provide voluntary management options
PUBLIC EDUCATION + COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT =
GROUNDWATER PROTECTION
Groundwater protection in small, groundwater-dependent
communities is reliant on a high level of citizen
involvement to be successful. These communities may
lack the financial resources and/or professional expertise
to ensure the protection of groundwater resources that
are vital to the human and economic health of the
community. Instead, they rely on an educated and
empowered citizenry acting responsibly on behalf of the
community. When citizens understand the fundamental
importance of groundwater to their environmental and
economic future, they are motivated and able to develop
innovative and cost-effective strategies for its protection.
TGF has found that no matter how diverse communi-
ties are, those that are successful begin the groundwater
protection process in generally the same way: by involving
local stakeholders. The involvement of a diverse group of
520 INTEGRATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS INTO WATER RESOURCES PLANNING
stakeholders is the most important part of the Groundwa-
ter Guardian program because a credible, broad-based
team effectively represents community interests and
therefore shares the responsibility for groundwater pro-
tection among community groups.
As is the case for any issue that depends on community
involvement for its success, groundwater protection needs
a long-term commitment that is continuously rejuvenated
by creativity, new ideas, and leadership. The same
ingredients that contribute to sustaining meaningful
groundwater education and protection activities also apply
to other beneficial community activities. By starting
with public education and stressing diverse community
involvement, communities are on the path to sustainable
groundwater protection. As TGF has learned, ‘‘it is because
of people that groundwater must be protected, but it is only
through people that we can do so.’’
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Alley, W.M., Reilly, T.E., and Franke, O.L. (1999). Sustainabil-
ity of Ground-Water Resources. U.S. Geological Survey Circular
1186.
2. Herpel, R., Jackson, J., Kuzelka, R., Rodenberg, S., and
Seacrest, S. (1998). Let’s Make a Difference: Mobilizing for
Community Action. The Groundwater Foundation, Lincoln,
NE.
INTEGRATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
INTO WATER RESOURCES PLANNING
MEHMET ALI YURDUSEV
Celal Bayar University
Manisa, Turkey
Nature is so complicated that we need to idealize or
simplify to understand, interpret, and benefit from it.
Simplifications are carried out by modeling natural
events. Models give us the opportunity to input values
representing the observed values of natural phenomena
to see what the possible outcome would be. Water is
one of the few natural substances without which human
beings cannot survive. Water use, therefore, is much
more complicated because it has to reconcile an irregular
or random natural phenomenon and humans’ attitudes
toward it, which is not less complicated than water in
nature itself. Therefore, it has to be managed by employing
complicated computer-based mathematical models. The
spatial and temporal dimensions of this complicated issue
can then be handled. These modeling studies are generally
referred to as water resources planning (WRP). WRP
can be defined as matching future demands to potential
resources, satisfying some preset objectives such as cost-
effectiveness or environmental quality. The end product of
water resources planning is a development plan for some
future period, normally 20 to 30 years. As such, WRP
mainly encompasses three types of activities:
• assessment of available water resources,
• assessment of future water requirements, and
• matching between available resources and fore-
cast demands.
In the third phase of water resources planning, what
is primarily involved is identifying the most appropriate
development strategy for meeting projected demands at
minimum cost, over the planning horizon. On a national
scale, the planning process is characterized by the need to
screen a large number of potential options (1) to determine
• which resources should be developed,
• the timing and order of that development, and
• the areas of demand to which each new resource
should be assigned.
Typically, this has required information relating to
future demand, the performance of different size sources
at various locations, the possible links between sources and
demand centers, together with all associated construction
and operating costs. Faced with an enormous choice of
possibilities for matching resources to needs, a systematic
search procedure is normally required to achieve an
objective assessment. The objective function of the
procedure would be minimization of total discounted costs.
To that end, various forms of mathematical programming
have been used (2) to identify the minimum net present
value of a development program. Alternatively, heuristic
search techniques can be used which, although not as
rigorous, provide a practical solution (3).
In the past, scant attention would have been given to
environmental considerations within the water resources
planning process until a scheme had already been
selected. Then, detailed environmental assessment would
be undertaken. At that stage, some attempts would be
made to identify and ameliorate damaging environmental
impacts. In contrast, the environmental considerations can
be incorporated from the outset and included in selecting
the scheme to be promoted. This is achieved by weighting
the costs of the various options (both construction and
operating) to reflect their environmental impacts, before
including them in the economic evaluation. The objective
function of the combined methodology is to minimize
the total monetary and environmental discounted cost of
meeting the projected demands. Quantification of such
considerations is achieved by running an appropriate
model with and without the environmental factors.
Such a model should integrate an environmental impact
assessment (EIA) and economic planning (EP) models. The
EIA model develops what might be called environmental
impact factors (EIF) to weigh the costs of schemes, and
the EP model is to undertake the scheme selection and
timing process using environmentally adjusted costs. The
EIF is a weighting function whose role is to raise the cost
of a water resource option if its environmental impact
assessment indicates that it is environmentally damaging
and to decrease it otherwise. Using such a factor in an
economic planning model has the effect of influencing
the solution toward selecting environmentally friendly
schemes at the expense of environmentally damaging ones.
In mathematical terms, an EIF is
0 < EIF < 1 and 1 < EIF < 2
 INTEGRATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS INTO WATER RESOURCES PLANNING
where 0 is the best possible outcome and 2 is the worst.
Using such factors, environmental gain can be expressed
by the former and the environmental loss by the latter: a
value of 1 indicates neutrality.
A multicriterion decision-making technique referred to
as composite programming (CP) can be used to derive
the EIFs. The output from CP is a measure of the
composite distance resulting from the aggregation of a
series of basic indicators (4). For a given L, the composite
distance from a so-called ideal point, where 0 represents
the best possibility and 1 represents the worst possibility,
the main features of CP are (1) 0 < L < 1 and (2) the larger
L, the worse the associated scheme. The real values of
basic indicators are weighed to obtain a further indicator
value. The procedure continues until it reaches a final
indicator value that will represent the performance of the
option according to the indicators considered. A simple
mathematical function which deliberately exaggerates the
extreme values can be used to transform L into EIF
as follows:
√ outputs of an EIA model (EIFs) in the economic planning
EIF = 1.4907 L if 0 < L < 0.45 (1)


EIF = 2 − 1.4907 1 − L if 0.45 < L < 1 (2)
In this way, it is possible to convert a series of
basic indicators covering both detrimental and beneficial
impacts to a corresponding EIF within the range of 0 to
2. When evaluating an impact, assessment values range
from negative significant to positive significant with a
central point at neutral. The impacts of water projects
can be grouped according to their resource use, quality,
ecosystem, and social implications. For example, the
aggregation structure given in Table 1 can be considered as
assessing the overall construction impact of a groundwater
development scheme. The assessment values in Table 1
are assigned within a range between 1 and 8; 1 is the
worst situation, 8 is the best, and 4 is neutral. The values
in parenthesis show the normalized ones.
The values of second level indicators are calculated
from the weighted sum of the associated basic impacts.
The value of resource implications is directly taken as
neutral because there are no associated basic impacts
from which its value can be obtained. The overall value
Table 1. Constructional Environmental Impact Assessment for a Groundwater Scheme
Assessment
Basic Impacts Values Weights
Lack of visual intrusion 6(0.18) 1.00
Effect of construction on surface 4(0.50) 0.44
ecosystem
Pipeline laying impact on vegetation 3(0.66) 0.56
and wildlife
Impact of infrastructure construction; 4(0.50) 0.27
noise, mud, etc.
Landscape/land use impact of 4(0.50) 0.27
pipeline/structures
Implementation benefits 6(0.18) 0.45
521
is, then, calculated as 0.41, and the EIF as 95% from
Equation 1. This value indicates that the project is
somewhat environmentally friendly and, therefore, the
associated cost will be reduced accordingly during the
optimization process.
Clearly, different types of resources/links will affect
the environment in different ways, and therefore, each
has its own specific set of considerations. Similarly, there
are different considerations for each type of resource/link
during the construction and operational phases. All these
different impacts can be accommodated within the EIA
model (5).
The economic planning model is intended to undertake
the scheduling process to determine when the resources
are to be built. Therefore, an existing model should be
adopted for this purpose. Such a model would perform
the planning process using the costs of water schemes
contained in the case study under consideration. The
objective is to find the least-cost solution for the whole
exercise. As previously mentioned, the idea is to use the
model selected to reflect the environmental performance of
each scheme. The two-way usage of an economic planning
model would give the user the opportunity to compare
results with and without environmental impacts. This may
even be used to quantify the cost of environmental impacts
in the form of additional investment required to apply
environmentally friendly solutions (with environmental
impact solutions). There are several economic water
resources planning models that can be used for this
purpose. The models can be based on unit costs (6), integer
linear programming (2,7), heuristic programming (8), and
genetic algorithms (9). The selection of an economic
planning model depends on the availability of models,
the amount to be invested, the nature of the exercise,
and the capability of the models. Unfortunately, most of
the models mentioned may not be commercially available.
However, the owners may lend the models on request.
Combining economic planning and EIA models pro-
duces an overall environmentally-influenced economic
planning system in which EIFs are used to weigh the real
construction and operating costs for various development
options to reflect their positive or negative environmental
Indicator
Second-Level Indicators Values Weights
Resource use implications 0.50 0.18
Quality implications for physical 0.18 0.29
system
Ecosystem implications 0.59 0.25
Social implications 0.35 0.29
522 THE EXPANSION OF FEDERAL WATER PROJECTS
impacts. The coupling can be achieved simply by an eco-
nomic model using the cost figures modified by the EIFs
produced by the EIA model.
Such a methodology was applied to the whole of
England and Wales using the National Rivers Authority’s
(NRA) data (3). The exercise was undertaken using the
same economic planning model used by NRA coupled
with an independent code for the EIA model (8). The
environmentally sensitive solution was repriced in real
terms by the model and therefore, the additional cost of
preferring such a plan was estimated (5).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Jamieson, D.G. (1986). An integrated multi-functional
approach to water-resources management. J. Hydrol. Sci.
31(3): 14.
2. O’Neill, P.G. (1972). A mathematical programming model for
planning a regional water-resource system. J. Inst. Water Engs.
26: 47–61.
3. National Rivers Authority. (1994). Water-Nature’s Precious
Resource: An Environmentally Sustainable Water Resources
Development Strategy for England and Wales. HMSO, London,
England.
4. United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO). (1987). Methodological Guidelines for the Inte-
grated Environmental Evaluation of Water Resources Devel-
opment. United Nations Environmental Programme(UNEP),
Paris, France.
5. Yurdusev, M.A. (2002). Environmental Impacts for Water
Resources Planning. WIT Press, Southampton, UK.
6. Armstrong, R.B. and Clarke, K.F. (1972). Water resource
planning in South East England. J. Inst. Water Eng. 26:
11–46.
7. Schrage, L. and Cunningham, K. (1991). LINGO Optimisation
Modelling Language. Lindo Systems Inc., Chicago.
8. Anglian Water Services. (1993). Economic Planning Model
of Water Resources: RESPLAN User Guide. Anglian Water
Services Ltd., Cambridge, England.
9. Dandy, G. and Connarty, M. (1995). Use of generic algorithms
for project sequencing. In: Integrated Water Resources
Planning for the 21st Century. M.F. Domenica (Ed.). Proc.
22nd Annu. Conf., ASCE, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA,
pp. 540–543, May 7–11.
THE EXPANSION OF FEDERAL WATER
PROJECTS
MARTIN REUSS
Office of History Headquarters
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Instead of national planning, Congress settled on a piece-
meal approach to public works development in the early
nineteenth century and, with rare exceptions, has clung to
this approach ever since. In May, 1824, President Monroe
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the
public domain in the United States of America.
signed legislation appropriating $75,000 to improve navi-
gation on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers—major routes
to the western part of the country. The act empowered
him to employ ‘‘any of the engineers in the public service
which he may deem proper’’ and to purchase the ‘‘req-
uisite water craft, machinery, implements, and force’’ to
eliminate various obstructions. Along with the General
Survey Act, signed a month before, the Mississippi-Ohio
rivers legislation initiated the permanent involvement of
the Army Corps of Engineers in rivers and harbors work.
However, each act focused on one activity: the General
Survey Act on planning; the other on construction. Two
years later, Congress combined surveys and projects in
one act, thus establishing a pattern that lasts until the
present. The 1826 act, therefore, can be called the first
true rivers and harbors legislation.
By the time of the Civil War, the federal contribution to
river, harbor, and canal improvements amounted to about
$17 million in appropriated monies. Some 4.6 million acres
of public lands were given for canal improvements and
another 1.7 million acres for river improvements. Land
grants under the 1849 and 1850 Swamp Land acts and the
1841 land grant act totaled some 73 million acres. While
these grants and appropriations were significant, they
represented a modest amount of aid compared with state
and private sector contributions, which by 1860 totaled
well over $185 million for canals alone. Corporations
and public agencies spent many millions more on the
construction of urban water systems.
Many of the canal companies incorporated by the
states ran into trouble. The 1837 depression had driven
a number into bankruptcy; others survived, but only with
a healthy influx of state money, state guaranteed bonds,
and occasional federal and state land grants. Often, too,
the national story was repeated at the state level, with
rationally planned canal routes sacrificed to local political
pressures to extend canals to uneconomical out-of-the-
way villages. The one major exception to this sad story
was the Erie Canal, whose success had spurred the canal
boom that increasingly appeared more like a dismal bust,
especially with new competition from the railroads. From
Pennsylvania to Ohio to Indiana to Illinois and on into the
states of the old Northwest, canal fever turned to canal
panic, and the public lost faith in both the companies and
the politicians who had supported the enterprises.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) also affected
the development of water projects. Military action and
wartime budgetary constraints took their toll on many
of the nation’s ports and navigable waterways, and after
the war commercial development accelerated demands for
waterway improvements. A business-oriented Republican
Congress responded by authorizing a great deal more
money for rivers and harbors. The federal government
also took over many of the bankrupt canal companies, and
the Corps of Engineers became the custodian of former
private or state waterways. This, as one author put it, was
the ‘‘Golden Age of the Pork Barrel’’. Between 1866 and
1882, the Presidents signed 16 rivers and harbors acts.
The 1866 act appropriated $3.7 million for 49 projects
and has been described as the first omnibus bill, so
called because like a horse-drawn omnibus of the time,

the legislation provided room for a great many people
boosting various projects. Sixteen years later, though, the
1882 act appropriated five times more money. By that
year, the federal government had spent over $111 million
on rivers and harbors projects. ‘‘Willingness to pay’’—the
primary test of project implementation before the Civil
War—now included unprecedented federal largess. In
the so-called ‘‘Gilded Age,’’ lack of federal or non-
federal funds was about the only thing that prevented
construction.
By the 1880s, the basic working relationship between
Congress and the Army Corps of Engineers was set.
Congress directed the Corps to survey potential projects,
make recommendations, and provide cost estimates.
Rivers and Harbors acts funded both the surveys and the
projects that Congress chose to authorize. Also in the early
1880s, Congress mandated that the Corps of Engineers
use more contractors and less hired labor. By the end of
the century, contractors did nine-tenths of all waterways
construction, and no Corps officer could use hired labor
without the express authority of the Chief of Engineers.
Increasingly, then, the Corps became a funding conduit to
the private sector. This pattern did not stop private sector
engineers from calling for the complete elimination of the
Corps from public works, but Congress rejected all bills
that leaned in that direction.
Fear of railroad competition and questions about
federal aid to projects of apparently local benefit moved
the Senate in 1872 to create a Select Committee on
Transportation Routes to the Seaboard. Composed of
nine senators, the committee was headed by Senator
William Windom of Minnesota and known popularly as the
Windom Committee. Its 1873 report promoted waterway
over railway transportation wherever waterways were
properly located. Of more relevance here is the committee’s
conclusion (on a five to four vote) that the sum of
local rivers and harbors projects contributed to the
national interest. Generally accepted by Congress, this
conclusion justified federal contributions for waterway
improvements. The result was the authorization of dozens
of dubious projects. By 1907, the cumulative total for rivers
and harbors appropriations was more than four times the
1882 figure; the federal role in navigation improvements
continued to grow.
Meanwhile, the issue of constitutional authority had
somewhat changed focus. In 1870, the Supreme Court
ruled in The Daniel Ball case that the common law
doctrine that navigability depended on tidal influence,
a doctrine accepted in British courts, did not fit the
American situation. However, the definition the Court
substituted was extraordinary. The test of navigation was
to be the river’s ‘‘navigable capacity.’’ That meant, the
Court went on:
Those waters must be regarded as public navigable rivers in
law which are navigable in fact. And they are navigable in
fact when they are used, or are susceptible of being used, in
their ordinary condition, as highways for commerce over which
trade and travel are or may be conducted in the customary
modes of trade and travel on water.
THE EXPANSION OF FEDERAL WATER PROJECTS 523
In short, American rivers were navigable if they were,
are, or could be navigable. This decision, in combination
with the earlier 1824 Gibbons v. Ogden Court ruling, made
the federal government the clear guardian and ultimate
decision-maker on tens of thousands of miles of waterways
in the United States. In practice it sufficed to show that a
stream had the capacity to float logs to declare it navigable.
However, with this issue more or less settled, another
appeared: flood control.
Rivers always flood, but the floods do not always
damage life and property. In the United States, we
can trace floods as far back as 1543, when Mississippi
River floods stopped Hernando De Soto’s expedition.
Naturally, as settlers moved into the floodplains and built
villages, then cities, the damages increased. By the mid-
nineteenth century, the problem was becoming critical
along the lower Mississippi. Most people put their faith
in technology to protect them. Indeed, the then popular
term ‘‘flood prevention’’ testifies to an extraordinarily
unrealistic idea when one thinks about it a bit. In the
twentieth century, the term became ‘‘flood control,’’ a
somewhat more modest formulation. Nowadays we speak
of ‘‘flood damage reduction,’’ which probably comes closest
to the mark. In any case, in the 1870s calls came
for repairing and raising the levees on the Mississippi
River. In 1879, Congress created a joint military—civilian
Mississippi River Commission to develop and implement
plans to improve navigation and flood control on the lower
Mississippi. However, once again some Congressmen
raised constitutional objections, expressing doubts that
flood control was an appropriate federal activity. Until
1890, no appropriation could be used for repairing or
constructing any levee in order to prevent damage to lands
from overflow, or for any purpose other than deepening
and improving the navigation channel. The 1890 floods
along the lower Mississippi resulted in the removal of this
restriction, which, in any event, had had little practical
effect other than satisfying congressional scruples.
Floods in 1912, 1913, and 1916 along the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers eventually led to passage of the 1917
Flood Control Act, the nation’s first act dedicated solely
to flood control. It provided funds on a cost-shared
basis for levee construction along the lower Mississippi
and another appropriation to improve the Sacramento
River in California. While an important step towards
federal involvement in flood control, it was comparatively
modest compared to what followed in the coming decades,
when flood control became intertwined with multipurpose
development—the subject of the next essay.
This article is based on Martin Reuss, ‘‘The Develop-
ment of American Water Resources, Planners, Politicians,
and Constitutional Interpretation,’’ in Paul Slack and
Julie Trottier (Eds.), Managing Water Resources, Past
and Present: The Twelfth Annual Linacre Lectures. Oxford
University Press, 2004. Forthcoming. Used by permission
of Oxford University Press.
The Development of American Water Resources:
Planners, Politicians, and Constitutional Interpretation.
The Constitution and Early Attempts at Rational
Water Planning.
The Expansion of Federal Water Projects.
524 FLOOD CONTROL HISTORY IN THE NETHERLANDS
FLOOD CONTROL HISTORY IN THE
NETHERLANDS
RONGCHAO LI
Delft University of Technology
Delft, The Netherlands
The traditional flood control approach in The Netherlands
is fighting against natural dynamics or, restricting the
natural dynamics of a river system by canalization
and embankments. However, such an approach results
in destruction of river scenery, damage to nature and
cultural values, as well as continuous dike raising
and strengthening. Changing societal views in The
Netherlands have aroused discussion of alternative flood
management strategies. Around the beginning of the for
twenty-first century, new visions appeared such as ‘‘living
with floods’’ and the ‘‘room for the river’’ policy.
FLOOD CONTROL HISTORY IN THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands is a small country in Western Europe.
The delta of the Rhine, Meuse, and Schelde Rivers lie
within the country. One-third of The Netherlands needs
and has artificial protection against floods from the sea or
major rivers (see Fig. 1). Millions of people live, and large
industries have settled in this area. In the western coastal
area, the major cities such as Amsterdam, The Hague, and
Rotterdam are situated. Large parts of the western coastal
Area that can be inundated
Figure 1. Almost 75% of The Netherlands is threatened
by floods (1).
area lie below sea level. Also in the area along the rivers,
cities and industries have settled. Therefore, flood risk
management is an important issue for The Netherlands.
The Rhine and Meuse Rivers are the largest and most
important rivers in The Netherlands. The Rhine River
has a large catchment stretching from the high Alps in
Switzerland, Germany, and France. The Meuse River flows
through France and Belgium. Only the most downstream
parts of these rivers are situated in the Netherlands.
Therefore, flood risk management focuses on the discharge
of water. Nowadays, after a long history of coping with
floods, a high safety standard has been reached.
Before 1000 A.D., floods occurred very frequently. Mainly
the higher parts in The Netherlands were inhabited, and
in the lower parts, people lived on mounds, so no real
disasters occurred in that period. Because people had no
technological options to prevent flood then, they had no
other option but to live with the floods and to avoid the
floodwaters. They adapted their lives and land use to the
rivers and sea.
About 1000 A.D., the inhabitants of The Netherlands
started to build the first dikes around relatively small
polders. The flood risk management strategy changed from
living with floods to a strategy where the river and its
floods were more controlled. This trend of increasing the
control of the river continued, and by 1400 A.D., an almost
completely closed dike system already existed along the
rivers (2). Furthermore, huge changes in the course of
the river and the riverbed in the form of regulation and
canalization took place (3). The river was harnessed into
a small area and now the people and land use did not
adapt to the river any longer, but the river was adapted
according to the wishes of the inhabitants. The main flood
management strategy consisted of preventing floods. This
strategy continued unchanged until 1953. After each dike
breach, the broken dikes were reconstructed, raised, and
improved resulting in increasingly higher and stronger
dikes. The last great flood of the Rhine River occurred in
1926, after which the dikes were improved again (2). Since
then, the rivers seemed controlled, and people feel safe.
In 1953, a major flood from the North Sea took place
that killed more than 1800 people. This flood resulted in
new safety regulations for the coast and also for the river
area. Previously, dike heights were based on the maximal
recorded water level, but after 1953, a more scientific base
has been used. The optimal level of safety was defined as
the accepted probability of flooding for the different areas
in The Netherlands. To be able to use this new norm,
it was simplified to the demand that dike levels should
exceed water levels related to a discharge with a chosen
return time. After several years of discussion, one safety
level was chosen for the whole area threatened by river
floods: a discharge with a probability of once in 1250 years
(the design discharge). Flooding by causes other than
overtopping of dikes and uncertainties in nature and in
the calculations were considered by adding 0.5 m to the
required height and some regulations for the design of the
dikes. Every 5 years, the design discharge is calculated
anew based on the recorded discharges.
Nowadays, the Dutch rivers are thus strongly human-
influenced. Figure 2 shows a cross section of a typical

Flood plain
Dike
Figure 2. A cross section of a typical river in The Netherlands (4).
Dutch part of a river. The rivers consist of a small
mainstream that has to enable navigation all year round.
Next to this mainstream, are floodplains which carry water
during peak flows, about twice each year in wintertime.
These floodplains are used for agriculture and recreation
in the summertime during lower discharges. The area
outside these floodplains is protected from floods by huge
embankments. The unprotected floodplains sometimes lie
higher than the surrounding area due to sedimentation
in the floodplains and subsidence of the surrounding
area. To prevent the area along the rivers from becoming
flooded at once, this area is subdivided into dike circles,
which are areas surrounded by embankments or natural
higher areas.
In 1993 and 1995, extremely high river discharges
occurred in the Meuse and Rhine Rivers. Because of
these extreme peak discharges, the design discharge
with a probability of once in 1250 years increased from
15.000 m3 /s to 16000 m3 /s at the Dutch–German border.
Using the traditional approach of flood risk management,
this would lead to a further increase of dike heights.
However, new solutions have developed nowadays creating
room for the rivers (5).
NEW VISIONS AND IDEAS IN FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT
Due to changes in the values of society and available
technology in The Netherlands, flood risk management is
changing. Some of these changes and the resulting ideas
on flood risk management are mentioned here (1):
• The current strategy based on one design discharge
for the whole area threatened by river floods leads to
the same level of protection for different areas with
different potential flood damage. Cities, agricultural
areas, and nature reserves all have the same
probability of flooding in The Netherlands. The
question arises whether this is economically sensible.
It also means that it is unknown which area will
become flooded first when an extreme discharge
occurs. Because all areas theoretically have the
same probability of flooding, a large area has to
be evacuated.
FLOOD CONTROL HISTORY IN THE NETHERLANDS 525
Navigation channel
Groyne Embankment
• Due to the fact that this strategy focuses on
preventing floods, little attention has been paid to
the consequences of possible floods. Relatively little
attention is paid to plans for emergency situations,
evacuation plans, flood mitigation measures, etc.
which also might lower flood risks. New technology
has increased the possibilities for good flood forecasts,
of communication technology, and flood warnings.
Also the possibility to anticipate peak flows by
lowering a structure and using a detention pond has
grown. These technologies make it easier to allow
controlled floods and therefore reduce the need to
prevent floods in all circumstances.
• By looking only at the probability of a design
discharge, risks are not clearly visualized. The
uncertainties in, for example, the design discharge,
the translation of the discharge to water levels, the
diversion of the peak flow through the different river
branches, the strength of dikes and structures, and
human behavior are not clearly considered. This
results in a false sense of safety in the area and
thus in rapid economic development and increasing
potential flood damage.
• Another disadvantage of the strategy is that it
includes an endless need for raising and improving
the water defense structures. Restricting the natural
dynamics of a river system by canalization and
embankments requires continuous maintenance and
improvements, otherwise the river dynamics will
damage these works, and the river will try to return
to its own natural behavior.
• The current strategy results in destruction of the
river scenery and damages nature and cultural
values. Recently, these values have become more
important. A new strategy should consider these
values and not focus only on reaching a ‘‘safe’’
situation by technical solutions.
• In these modern times, disasters are not accepted any
longer. The government and water managers would
be held responsible for a disaster, even if the event
that caused the disaster is extreme and rare.
In The Netherlands, consciousness has increased that
absolute safety cannot be guaranteed and that floods will
526 FOOD AND WATER IN AN EMERGENCY
always occur. However, disasters are not accepted any
longer. Therefore, and because of the disadvantages of the
current strategy, as mentioned above, new ways to deal
with uncertainties and flood risks have to be found.
In 1990, the policy report ‘‘Room for Rivers’’ was
published. This policy wants to create room for rivers
to stop the continuous cycle of dike raising, increased
feelings of safety, increased investments, increased flood
risks, and needs for further dike raising. By moving the
dikes away from the river, digging out the floodplains,
removing obstacles from the floodplains and sometimes
constructing bypasses for peak flows, room for the river
is created. The purpose of this policy is to interrupt the
continuous dike raising and lower the water levels in
the river by giving the river more space. In reality, this
policy has been applied at different locations. Numerous
obstacles, such as roads to bridges, roads to ferries, and
brick factories in the floodplains have been removed or
have changed to permit water flow. At Nijmegen near the
Dutch–German border, a dike has been moved to increase
room for the river. The inhabitants of the area normally
opposed these projects because the room for the river is
taken from other functions. However, they are mostly also
against dike raising because it deteriorates their scenery
and sometimes it destroys houses and restaurants built
on or near the dike.
Another new policy is the indication of so-called
‘‘emergency areas.’’ These are areas that must be flooded
first to protect other, more vulnerable areas. Officially
these areas should be used only for discharges that exceed
the design discharge, thus with a frequency of less than
once in 1250 years. Official research has been published,
but until now, no governmental decision has been made
about the indication of such areas, the location of these
areas, or the regulations for the inhabitants of these areas.
It is unclear whether the villages in these areas will
be protected by dikes and what damage compensation
they will receive. The purpose of this policy is to limit
the emergency measures to smaller areas and to know
what area will become flooded and not leave the choice to
the river.
Other new concepts are introduced in the National
Policy on Water Management. According to this policy
we should ‘‘aim at resilient and healthy water systems.’’
Resilient water systems are systems that may be disturbed
or show temporary change but will easily recover. To
discuss resilience and resistance, a systems approach to
flood risk management has to be adopted. The system
on which flood risk management focuses can be defined
as the whole area threatened by floods including the
society, ecosystems, and the river itself in this area.
Optimal flood risk management depends on the society
and culture of the inhabitants, not only on the discharge
regime of the river. Furthermore, the whole system
should be studied, not just a small river stretch, because
measures as well as floods downstream and upstream
interact with each other. Measures may transport the flood
problems downstream, and upstream floods may prevent
downstream inundations. In resilience strategies for flood
risk management, floods are not necessarily prevented,
but the flood impacts are limited, and recovery after the
flood is enhanced. Resilience strategies focus on the whole
discharge regime, not on a certain design discharge or
design event. These strategies are still only a subject
of research and an option for the long term. For more
information, see De Bruijn and Klijn (1) or Vis et al. (6).
CONCLUSIONS
One-third of The Netherlands needs and has artificial
protection against floods from the sea or the major
rivers. In this area, millions of people live and large
industries have settled. This proves the importance of
flood management for The Netherlands. After centuries of
coping with floods, research and reconsideration of flood
management strategies are still needed because society is
changing and thus the optimal flood management strategy
must also change.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. De Bruijn, K.M., Klijn, F. (2001). Resilient Flood Risk
Management Strategies. Proc. IAHR Congress September
16–21, Beijing, Tsinghua University Press, Beijing, China,
pp. 450–457.
2. Commissie Rivierdijken (1977). Rapport commissie rivierdi-
jken. (In Dutch) Hoofddirectie van de Waterstraat, s-
Gravenhage.
3. Janssen, J.P.F.M. and Jorissen, R.E. (1997). Flood manage-
ment in The Netherlands; recent development and research
needs. In: Ribamod, River Basin Modelling, Management And
Flood Mitigation Concerted Action. R. Casale, K. Havnø, and
P. Samuels (Eds.). pp. 89–104.
4. Silva, W., Klijn F., and Dijkman, J. (2000). Ruimte Voor
Rijntakken. What The Research Taught Us. Delft, WL|Delft
Hydraulics, The Netherlands.
5. Min.VROM En V&W (Ministeries VROM En V&W) (1997).
Beleidslijn Ruimte Voor De Rivier. Den Haag (In Dutch).
6. Vis, M., Klijn, F., and Van Buuren, M. (Eds.). (2001). Living
with Floods, Resilience Strategies for Flood Risk Management
and Multiple Land Use in the Lower Rhine River Basin.
Summary report. NCR, Delft, The Netherlands, de Bruijn,
2001.
FOOD AND WATER IN AN EMERGENCY
Federal Emergency
Management Agency
INTRODUCTION
If an earthquake, hurricane, winter storm or other disaster
strikes your community, you might not have access to food,
water and electricity for days, or even weeks. By taking
some time now to store emergency food and water supplies,
you can provide for your entire family. This brochure was
developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
in cooperation with the American Red Cross and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the
public domain in the United States of America.

WATER
Having an ample supply of clean water is a top priority
in an emergency. A normally active person needs to drink
at least two quarts of water each day. Hot environments
can double that amount. Children, nursing mothers and
ill people will need even more.
You will also need water for food preparation and
hygiene. Store a total of at least one gallon per person, per
day. You should store at least a two - week supply of water
for each member of your family.
If supplies run low, never ration water. Drink the
amount you need today, and try to find more for tomorrow.
You can minimize the amount of water your body needs
by reducing activity and staying cool.
HOW TO STORE WATER
Store your water in thoroughly washed plastic, glass,
fiberglass or enamel-lined metal containers. Never use a
container that has held toxic substances.
Plastic containers, such as soft drink bottles, are best.
You can also purchase food-grade plastic buckets or drums.
Seal water containers tightly, label them and store in a
cool, dark place. Rotate water every six months.
EMERGENCY OUTDOOR WATER SOURCES
If you need to find water outside your home, you can use
these sources. Be sure to purify the water according to the
instructions listed below before drinking it.
• Rainwater
• Streams, rivers and other moving bodies of water
• Ponds and lakes
• Natural springs
Avoid water with floating material, an odor or dark color.
Use saltwater only if you distill it first. You should not
drink floodwater.
THREE WAYS TO PURIFY WATER
In addition to having a bad odor and taste, contaminated
water can contain microorganisms that cause diseases
such as dysentery, typhoid and hepatitis. You should
purify all water of uncertain purity before using it for
drinking, food preparation or hygiene.
There are many ways to purify water. None is perfect.
Often the best solution is a combination of methods.
Two easy purification methods are outlined below. These
measures will kill most microbes but will not remove other
contaminants such as heavy metals, salts and most other
chemicals. Before purifying, let any suspended particles
settle to the bottom, or strain them through layers of paper
towel or clean cloth.
1. Boiling
Boiling is the safest method of purifying water. Bring
water to a rolling boil for 1 minute, keeping in mind
FOOD AND WATER IN AN EMERGENCY 527
that some water will evaporate. Let the water cool
before drinking.
Boiled water will taste better if you put oxygen back
into it by pouring the water back and forth between
two clean containers. This will also improve the taste
of stored water.
2. Disinfection
You can use household liquid bleach to kill microor-
ganisms. Use only regular household liquid bleach
that contains 5.25 percent sodium hypochlorite. Do
not use scented bleaches, color-safe bleaches or
bleaches with added cleaners.
Add 16 drops of bleach per gallon of water, stir and
let stand for 30 minutes. If the water does not have
a slight bleach odor, repeat the dosage and let stand
another 15 minutes.
The only agent used to purify water should be
household liquid bleach. Other chemicals, such as
iodine or water treatment products sold in camping
or surplus stores that do not contain 5.25 percent
sodium hypochlorite as the only active ingredient,
are not recommended and should not be used.
While the two methods described above will kill most
microbes in water, distillation will remove microbes
that resist these methods, and heavy metals, salts
and most other chemicals.
3. Distillation
Distillation involves boiling water and then collect-
ing the vapor that condenses back to water. The
condensed vapor will not include salt and other
impurities. To distill, fill a pot halfway with water.
Tie a cup to the handle on the pot’s lid so that the cup
will hang right-side-up when the lid is upside-down
(make sure the cup is not dangling into the water)
and boil the water for 20 minutes. The water that
drips from the lid into the cup is distilled.
HIDDEN WATER SOURCES IN YOUR HOME
If a disaster catches you without a stored supply of clean
water, you can use the water in your hot-water tank, pipes
and ice cubes. As a last resort, you can use water in the
reservoir tank of your toilet (not the bowl).
Do you know the location of your incoming water valve?
You’ll need to shut it off to stop contaminated water from
entering your home if you hear reports of broken water or
sewage lines.
To use the water in your pipes, let air into the plumbing
by turning on the faucet in your house at the highest level.
A small amount of water will trickle out. Then obtain
water from the lowest faucet in the house.
To use the water in your hot-water tank, be sure the
electricity or gas is off, and open the drain at the bottom of
the tank. Start the water flowing by turning off the water
intake valve and turning on a hot-water faucet. Do not
turn on the gas or electricity when the tank is empty.
Food
Short—Term Supplies. Even though it is unlikely that
an emergency would cut off your food supply for two weeks,
you should prepare a supply that will last that long.
528 FOOD AND WATER IN AN EMERGENCY

The easiest way to develop a two-week stockpile is to Individuals with special diets and allergies will need
increase the amount of basic foods you normally keep on particular attention, as will babies, toddlers and elderly
your shelves. people. Nursing mothers may need liquid formula, in case
they are unable to nurse. Canned dietetic foods, juices and
Storage Tips soups may be helpful for ill or elderly people.
Make sure you have a manual can opener and
• Keep food in a dry, cool spot-a dark area if possible.
disposable utensils. And don’t forget non-perishable foods
• Keep food covered at all times. for your pets.
• Open food boxes or cans carefully so that you can
close them tightly after each use.
• Wrap cookies and crackers in plastic bags, and keep SHELF-LIFE OF FOODS FOR STORAGE
them in tight containers.
• Empty opened packages of sugar, dried fruits and Here are some general guidelines for rotating common
nuts into screw-top jars or air-tight cans to protect emergency foods.
them from pests.
• Inspect all food for signs of spoilage before use. • Use within six months:
• Use foods before they go bad, and replace them with • Powdered milk (boxed)
fresh supplies, dated with ink or marker. Place new • Dried fruit (in metal container)
items at the back of the storage area and older ones • Dry, crisp crackers (in metal container)
in front. • Potatoes
Nutrition Tips • Use within one year:
• Canned condensed meat and vegetable soups
During and right after a disaster, it will be vital that you • Canned fruits, fruit juices and vegetables
maintain your strength. So remember:
• Ready-to-eat cereals and uncooked instant cereals
• Eat at least one well-balanced meal each day. (in metal containers)
• Drink enough liquid to enable your body to function • Peanut butter
properly (two quarts a day). • Jelly
• Take in enough calories to enable you to do any • Hard candy and canned nuts
necessary work. • Vitamin C
• Include vitamin, mineral and protein supplements in • May be stored indefinitely (in proper containers
your stockpile to assure adequate nutrition. and conditions):
• Wheat
Food Supplies
• Vegetable oils
When Food Supplies Are Low. If activity is reduced, • Dried corn
healthy people can survive on half their usual food intake
• Baking powder
for an extended period and without any food for many
days. Food, unlike water, may be rationed safely, except • Soybeans
for children and pregnant women. • Instant coffee, tea and cocoa
If your water supply is limited, try to avoid foods that • Salt
are high in fat and protein, and don’t stock salty foods,
• Non-carbonated soft drinks
since they will make you thirsty. Try to eat salt-free
crackers, whole grain cereals and canned foods with high • White rice
liquid content. • Bouillon products
You don’t need to go out and buy unfamiliar foods to • Dry pasta
prepare an emergency food supply. You can use the canned
• Powdered milk (in nitrogen-packed cans)
foods, dry mixes and other staples on your cupboard
shelves. In fact, familiar foods are important. They can
lift morale and give a feeling of security in time of stress. IF THE ELECTRICITY GOES OFF
Also, canned foods won’t require cooking, water or special
preparation. Following are recommended short-term food
FIRST, use perishable food and foods from the refrigerator.
storage plans.
THEN, use the foods from the freezer. To minimize
the number of times you open the freezer door, post
SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS a list of freezer contents on it. In a well-filled, well-
insulated freezer, foods will usually still have ice crystals
As you stock food, take into account your family’s unique in their centers (meaning foods are safe to eat) for at least
needs and tastes. Try to include foods that they will enjoy three days.
and that are also high in calories and nutrition. Foods that FINALLY, begin to use non-perishable foods and
require no refrigeration, preparation or cooking are best. staples.

HOW TO COOK IF THE POWER GOES OUT
For emergency cooking you can use a fireplace, or a
charcoal grill or camp stove can be used outdoors. You
can also heat food with candle warmers, chafing dishes
and fondue pots. Canned food can be eaten right out of the
can. If you heat it in the can, be sure to open the can and
remove the label first.
Disaster Supplies
Emergency Supplies. It’s 2:00 a.m. and a flash flood
forces you to evacuate your home-fast. There’s no time to
gather food from the kitchen, fill bottles with water, grab
a first-aid kit from the closet and snatch a flashlight
and a portable radio from the bedroom. You need to
have these items packed and ready in one place before
disaster strikes.
Pack at least a three-day supply of food and water, and
store it in a handy place. Choose foods that are easy to
carry, nutritious and ready-to-eat. In addition, pack these
emergency items:
• Medical supplies and first aid manual n Money and
matches in a waterproof
• Hygiene supplies container
• Portable radio, flashlights and n Fire extinguisher
extra batteries n Blanket and extra clothing
• Shovel and other useful tools
• Infant and small children’s needs (if appropriate)
• Household liquid bleach to purify drinking water.
• Manual can opener
Learn More
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Commu-
nity and Family Preparedness Program and the American
Red Cross Community Disaster Education Program are
nationwide efforts to help people prepare for disasters
of all types. For more information, please contact your
local emergency management office and American Red
Cross chapter.
WATER DEMAND FORECASTING
STEVEN J. RENZETTI
Brock University
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
INTRODUCTION
People who are involved with planning, constructing, and
operating water supply facilities frequently must have an
idea of the current state of water use and also what
future water demands are likely to be. This need is
made all the more important when water use is rising
rapidly and when the cost of major water infrastructure
projects is considered. These factors imply that there is
a need for accurate forecasts of water demands so that
WATER DEMAND FORECASTING 529
infrastructure projects are correctly sized and scheduled.
The purpose of this article is to examine briefly the
concepts and methods for forecasting water demands (for
a more detailed discussion, see Refs. 3–5). We begin by
considering the general nature of water demand forecasts.
ISSUES IN FORECASTING WATER DEMANDS
There are several issues surrounding the general practice
of water demand forecasting. Boland (1) points out that
any forecast has two essential components: explanation
and prediction: ‘‘Explanation of water use usually takes
the form of a model that relates the past observed level of
water use to various variables. Replacing past values of
the explanatory variables with those expected in the future
produces a prediction of future water use’’ (pp. 162–163).
Historically, the first of these two tasks—explaining water
use—has been done by using ‘fixed-coefficient’ models. In
this approach, it is assumed that water use is related
to a single explanatory factor such as population and,
further, that the relationship between water use and
population is a fixed, proportional one. Dziegielewski (2),
for example, provides a brief review of the history of urban
water demand forecasting and demonstrates that, in the
‘traditional’ method of forecasting, total future demand is
predicted as the product of expected population growth and
a fixed per capita water use coefficient. This method was
subsequently refined by disaggregating total water use
by user classes, area, and time period. The fundamental
forecasting method remained the same, however; ‘unit
water use coefficients’ is multiplied by the projected growth
in a particular user group in a specific location. The
fundamental shortcoming of the fixed coefficient approach
is that it fails to anticipate changes in the relationship
between water use and the dominant explanatory variable
that may arise from changes in other, neglected variables.
For example, forecasts of residential water use that are
based on the number of households in an area may
overstate future water demands if they neglect the impacts
of rising water prices. More recently, more complex models
have sought to estimate statistically the relationship
between water use and a set of explanatory variables,
including water prices.
Estimated relationships form the basis for demand
forecasts. Dziegielewski (2) describes how a computer
model commonly used to forecast urban water demands
(IWR-MAIN) is evolving to incorporate more complex
models of water use.
Another feature of water demand forecasts is that they
have different time horizons and that these different
time horizons reflect, in part, the different uses to
which water demand forecasts are put. These may be
roughly categorized into short-, medium-, and long-term
forecasts (3,6). Short-run forecasts are conducted by water
utility managers and water supply agencies to anticipate
daily peak loads and other seasonal features of water
use. Medium-term forecasts often examine user group
investment decisions (such as the locations of new housing
developments and manufacturing facilities) to establish
anticipated changes in water demands during the next
5–10 years. These forecasts are then used to guide water
530 WATER DEMAND FORECASTING
agency investment decisions. Finally, long-term forecasts
can investigate the impacts of structural and technological
changes in the economy (such as the shift in employment
from manufacturing to service-based industries) as well as
the impacts of major policy changes (such as water quality
legislation).
CASES OF WATER DEMAND FORECASTING
As mentioned earlier, water demand forecasts can
be conducted on a variety of geographic scales. This
section draws on chapter 11 of Renzetti (5) and considers
examples of water demand forecasts conducted on
municipal, regional, and national scales. Boland (1)
summarizes a forecasting exercise where the IWR-MAIN
water demand model was combined with predictions of
climate change to predict water use in Washington, DC.
Boland combines the predictions of five climate change
models with forecasts of other explanatory variables such
as prices, incomes, and housing stock. These are then
fed into IWR-MAIN, and the model provides predicted
water use levels for 2030 under different climate and
policy scenarios. In the absence of any change in climate
patterns, summer water use in the region is expected
to grow 100% by 2030. Once the impacts of climate
change are incorporated, the predicted growth ranges from
74% to 138%, assuming no change in policies. However,
implementing relatively modest nonprice conservation
efforts (such as adopting a revised plumbing code) reduces
the range of forecasted growth in summer water use to
between 40 and 92%. Adding a 50% increase in real water
prices reduces expected water use growth even further:
predicted growth in summer water use between 1985 and
2030 in this case ranges from 26.6% to 73.6%.
Planners often also forecast the water demands of
major water-using sectors within a region. Representative
of this type of exercise is the California Department of
Water’s recent effort to forecast urban, agricultural, and
in-stream water use in California to the year 2020 (7).
Urban water use is assumed to be the product of population
growth and changes in per capita water use the latter
is modeled as determined by a number of factors such
as income, water prices, and conservation measures.
Statewide urban per capita water use in 1995 was 229
U.S. gallons/day; the forecasted level of per capita water
use in 2020 is 243 gallons/day without new conservation
measures and 215 gallons/day using new conservation
measures. The California Department of Water adopts
a sophisticated and multifaceted approach to forecasting
irrigation water demands. Each crop’s aggregate irrigation
water use is calculated as the product of the crop’s water
‘‘requirements’’ and the statewide irrigated acreage for the
crop. Individual crop’s water requirements are estimated
using agronomic and climate data. Expected statewide
acreage for each crop is a function of forecasted market
conditions and expected government policies. The final
type of water use to be factored into the Californian
forecasts is in-stream needs. It turns out that these
are largely determined by legislation and future climate
conditions. After summing across sectors, total Californian
water use in 1995 was 79,490 thousand acre-feet and,
assuming a continuation of past climatic conditions, total
Californian water use in 2020 is forecast at 80,500
thousand acre-feet. The prediction of constant total water
use masks the fact that several sectors and regions
are expected to exhibit different rates of growth. For
example, total projected urban water use will rise from
8770 thousand acre-feet in 1995 to 12,020 thousand acre-
feet in 2020, and agricultural water use is expected to
decline from 33,780 thousand acre-feet to 31,500 thousand
acre-feet for the same period.
Finally, there have been considerable efforts expended
to forecast water demand growth on a national and
even global scale. Gleick (8) critically surveys researchers’
efforts to project global water use into the twenty-
first century. Gleick points out that early projections
were essentially extrapolations of current water use
patterns under ‘business as usual’ assumptions regarding
technology, water pricing, and water use efficiency. The
extrapolations are then based on projections of expected
growth in population, agricultural, industrial, and energy
output. Gleick contends, however, that almost all of the
projections based on fixed-coefficient models of water use
have significantly overstated actual water use in the past
because they cannot anticipate the extent to which water’s
growing scarcity induces technological and institutional
innovation, changes in sectoral composition, and slowing
rates of population growth. For example, Gleick compares
a number of projections of global water use in 2000
with actual recorded water use and finds that actual
withdrawals in the mid-1990s were only half of what
most forecasters in the 1960s and 1970s projected.
A representative example of this type of effort is
Seckler et al. (4). The authors project per capita and total
withdrawals for 118 countries for the period 1990–2025.
Projections of per capita residential withdrawals are based
on population or GDP growth, and per capita irrigation
water use is assumed constant (‘‘business as usual’’) or
declines due to improved technology (‘‘high efficiency’’).
The impact of improved efficiency is dramatic. In the first
scenario, global irrigation water use grows 60% for the
period; in the second scenario, irrigation water use grows
by only 13%. Similarly, global water withdrawals increase
by 56% in the ‘‘business as usual’’ scenario and by 26% in
the ‘high efficiency’ scenario.
CONCLUSIONS
The rapid growth in water demands that has been
observed in many regions and sectors and the costs of
servicing these demands highlight the need for accurate
water demand forecasts. This article has demonstrated
that researchers and utility operators have developed
techniques to conduct forecasts for different time periods
and different geographic scales. Historically, the fixed-
coefficient method of explaining and predicting water
demands has dominated, but experience with this model
has demonstrated that it neglects many factors (such
as prices, incomes and, water conservation programs)
that influence demands. This shortcoming has typically
led fixed-coefficient models to overstate expected water
demand growth. It is expected that more sophisticated
 REMOTE SENSING AND GIS APPLICATION IN WATER RESOURCES
models that account for a wider range of factors that
influence water use and that allow for feedback between
water use and economic conditions will provide more
accurate forecasts of water demands.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Boland, J. (1997). Assessing urban water use and the role
of water conservation measures under climate uncertainty.
In: Climate Change and Water Resources Planning Criteria.
K. Frederick, D. Major, and E. Stakhiv (Eds.). Kluwer Aca-
demic, Dordrecht, pp. 157–171.
2. Dziegielewski, B. (1996). Long-term forecasting of urban water
demands. In: Marginal Cost Rate Design and Wholesale
Water Markets. D. Hall (Ed.). Advances in the Economics
of Environmental Resources vol. 1, JAI Press, Greenwich,
Connecticut, pp. 33–47.
3. Billings, R.B. and Jones, C.V. (1996). Forecasting Urban
Water. American Water Works Association, Demand Denver.
4. Seckler, D., Barker, R., and Amarasinghe, U. (1999). Water
scarcity in the twenty-first century. Int. J. Water Resour. Dev.
15(1/2): 29–42.
5. Renzetti, S. (2002). The Economics of Water Demands. Kluwer
Academic, Norwell, Massachusetts.
6. Baumann, D. (1998). Forecasting urban water use: theory
and principles. In: Urban Water Demand Management and
Planning. D. Baumann, J. Boland and W.M. Hanemann (Eds.).
McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 77–94.
7. California Department of Water Resources (1998). The
California Water Plan Update. Bulletin 160–98, Sacramento,
California.
8. Gleick, P. (2000). The World’s Water 2000–2001. Island Press,
Washington, DC.
REMOTE SENSING AND GIS APPLICATION IN
WATER RESOURCES
SANJAY KUMAR JAIN
National Institute of Hydrology
Roorkee, India
Water resources are essential for human life, agriculture,
and hydroelectric power generation. Remote sensing
and the Geographic Information System (GIS) help in
creating an appropriate information base for efficiently
managing these resources. The synoptic view provided
by satellite remote sensing and the analytical capability
provided by the GIS offer a technologically appropriate
method for studying various features related to land and
water resources.
Remote sensing is a tool that permits accurate and real-
time evaluation, continuous monitoring or surveillance,
and forecasts of inland water resources. Remote sensing
systems are used to observe the earth’s surface from
different levels of platforms, such as satellites and aircraft,
and make it possible to collect and analyze information
about resources and environment across large areas.
Remote sensors record electromagnetic energy reflected or
emitted from the earth’s surface. Different kinds of objects
or features such as soils, vegetation, and water reflect
531
and emit energy differently. This characteristic makes it
possible to measure, map, and monitor these objects and
features using satellite or aircraft-borne remote sensing
systems. Satellite imagery offers a number of advantages
over conventional survey techniques:
• areal synoptic coverage (gives areal information
as against point information through conven-
tional techniques)
• repetitive global coverage (for monitoring change)
• real-time processing
• sensing of surrogates rather than the desired specific
observation
• multispectral coverage
• more automation, less human error
For many water related studies, remote sensing data
alone are not sufficient; they have to be merged with data
from other sources. Hence a multitude of spatially related
(i.e., climatic and geographic) data concerning rainfall,
evaporation, vegetation, geomorphology, soils, and rocks
have to be considered. In addition, information is also
required such as locations and type of tube wells and rain
and river gauges. Thus, the fast storage, retrieval, display,
and updating of map contents are important functions. A
system that can store data, select and classify stations, and
perform mathematical and sorting operations is called
a database, and information can be extracted from it
for a given purpose. If this information can also be
displayed in the form of maps, we can speak of geographic
information. So this complete set of information forms
the Geographic Information System (GIS). The GIS is
an effective tool for storing, managing, and displaying
spatial data (Fig. 1) often encountered in hydrology and
water resources management studies. The GIS technology
integrates common database operations, such as queries
and statistical analysis, with the unique visualization and
benefits of geographic analysis that maps and spatial
databases offer. The use of remote sensing data in the GIS
is shown in Fig. 2.
One of the capabilities of the GIS most important to
water resources management studies is describing the
topography of a region. A digital elevation model (DEM)
provides a digital representation of a portion of the earth’s
terrain across a two-dimensional surface. DEMs have
proved to be a valuable tool for topographic parameteriza-
tion of hydrologic models, especially for drainage analysis,
hillslope hydrology, watersheds, groundwater flow, and
contaminant transport.
Problems of water resources development and efficient
use such as frequent floods and droughts, waterlogging and
salinity in command areas, an alarming rate of reservoir
sedimentation due to deforestation, and deteriorating
water quality and environment are varied and numerous
in nature. All must be tackled by systematic approaches
involving a judicious mix of conventional methods and
remotely sensed data in the GIS environment. The
availability of remotely sensed data and the use of
the GIS has provided significant impetus to hydrologic
analysis and design and their use in water resources
532 REMOTE SENSING AND GIS APPLICATION IN WATER RESOURCES

Data retrieval and Remote sensing Aerial photo Existing data

queries for management products maps, reports

Data Data Image processing

management analysis

Computer assissted Visual

classification interretation
Data Data transformation
input and modelling
Preliminary
Verification
thematic map
Data
sources Users
Field work

Point data,
Data Final interpretation aerial data, etc.
Decision making
gathering
Final maps Attribute data

Input forms
Surveying Validation Digitizing spread sheet

Graphic Attribute
Real world

Figure 1. The GIS, a management tool.

planning and development. Remote sensing and GIS

Raster Vector
techniques have been extensively used in various areas
of water resources development and management, such Figure 2. Remote sensing products in a GIS.
as land use/cover classification, precipitation, snow
cover, floodplain management, command area studies,
waterlogging and soil salinity, sedimentation in reservoirs, related model components (e.g., for interception and
and hydrologic modeling, which are defined below in brief. evapotranspiration) are chosen, dependent on land use.

LAND USE/LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION PRECIPITATION STUDIES

Multispectral classification of land cover types was one
of the first well-established remote sensing applications
for water resources. Numerous investigators have used
a classification of land cover from satellite data as input
to various water resources studies. Land use features
can be identified, mapped, and studied on the basis of
their spectral characteristics. Healthy green vegetation
has considerably different characteristics in the visible
and near-infrared regions of the spectrum, whereas dry
bare soil has a relatively stable reflectance in both regions
of the spectrum. Water shows very low reflectance in the
visible part of the spectrum and almost no reflectance
in the infrared part of the spectrum. Thus, by using
multispectral data suitably, different ground features can
be differentiated from each other, and thematic maps
depicting land use can be prepared from satellite data.
Land use data devised from remote sensing are an ideal
database for distributed hydrologic modeling changes. In
many hydrologic models, the parameters of vegetation
Precipitation, one of the driving forces in the hydrologic
cycle, is a prime candidate variable for remote sensing
measurement. There are many remote sensing possibil-
ities, including ground based radar, visible and thermal
infrared satellite imagery, and microwave satellite data.
The use of ground based radar has been successful espe-
cially when used with an integrated rain-gauge network
and in areas of low relief. Visible and thermal infrared
techniques using measurements of cloud top reflectance
and temperature have been used in a variety of ways by
meteorologists and other scientists to estimate monthly,
daily, and storm precipitation totals. Visible and infrared
measurements represent observations only of the upper
surface of clouds. In contrast, it is often believed that
microwave radiation is not affected by the presence of
clouds. Measuring rain from a spaceborne radar is very
attractive because it can discriminate in range (alti-
tude when operated from space), and radar reflectivity
is directly related to rainfall rate.
 REMOTE SENSING AND GIS APPLICATION IN WATER RESOURCES
SNOW COVER STUDIES
Measurement of the area of a basin covered by snow is
similar to land cover measurement. Conventional methods
have limitations in monitoring the snow covered area in
mountainous basins because of inaccessibility.
Very little information on snow is collected regularly in
mountainous areas, so remote sensing remains the only
practical way of obtaining some relevant information on
the snow cover in the large number of mountain basins.
At present the visible, near IR, and thermal IR data
from various satellite (Landsat, IRS, NOAA) are being
used operationally for mapping the areal extent of snow
cover in mountainous basins. Visible and near-infrared
wavelengths do not penetrate far into the snowpack, so
they provide information mainly about the surface of
the snowpack. Microwave remote sensing is promising
because of its ability to penetrate the dry snowpack and
its capability of acquiring data in cloudy or nighttime
conditions. Snow cover data extracted by satellite remote
sensing is immediately usable in snowmelt runoff models.
In addition to the extent of snow cover, satellite data
are useful in computing snow water equivalent from
microwave data.
SOIL MOISTURE ASSESSMENT
Remotely sensed data have great potential for providing
areal estimates of soil moisture rather than point
measurements. Quantitative assessment of soil moisture
regime is essential for water balance models, irrigation
scheduling, crop management, and surface and subsurface
flow predictions. Remote sensing of soil moisture can
be accomplished to some degree in all regions of the
electromagnetic spectrum. The use and application of
remotely sensed data for soil moisture depends on
measuring the electromagnetic energy that is reflected or
emitted from the surface. Thus, either direct observations
of the soil by remote sensors or indirect estimates using
plant condition are useful in soil moisture observations.
The soil moisture beneath microwave remote sensing
can directly measure the dielectric properties of the
earth’s surface, which in turn is strongly dependent on
moisture content.
FLOODPLAIN MANAGEMENT
Reliable data on river morphology, river meandering, the
extent of flooding, and duration are required for proper
planning of flood control projects. In conventional methods
of flood risk zoning, the flood discharge is routed through
a river reach to estimate the likely inundation due to
spilling over banks/embankments based on topographic
contour maps available and the configuration of the
river geometry obtained from land surveys. Continuous
availability of satellite based remote sensing data has
made understanding the dynamics of floods much easier.
Satellite remote sensing techniques provide wide area
coverage, repetitiveness, and consistency, which enables
collecting reliable information on all major floods.
533
Remote sensing can provide information on flood
inundated areas for different magnitudes of floods, so
that the extent of flooding in floodplains can be related
to flood magnitude. The duration of flooding can be
estimated with the help of multiple coverage satellite
imagery of the same area within 2–3 days by satellites.
High-resolution satellite data provide information on the
floodplain and effectiveness of flood control works. The
extent of inundation for specific flood return periods can
be estimated. Using close contour information, the extent
of inundation for a given elevation can be estimated, this
is a vital input for risk zone mapping.
The GIS provides a broad range of tools for determining
the area affected by floods and for forecasting areas that
are likely to be flooded due to the high water level in
a river. Spatial data stored in the digital database of
the GIS, such as a digital elevation model (DEM), can
be used to predict future floods. The GIS database may
also contain agricultural, socioeconomic, communication,
population, and infrastructural data. This can be used
in conjunction with flooding data to adopt an evacuation
strategy, rehabilitation planning, and damage assessment
in a critical flood situation.
MAPPING AND MONITORING OF WATERSHEDS
Proper planning of watersheds is essential for conserva-
tion of water and land resources and their productivity.
Characterization and analysis of watersheds are a pre-
requisite for this. Watershed characterization involves
measuring parameters of geologic, hydrogeologic, geo-
morphological, hydrologic, soil, and land cover/land use.
Remote sensing via aerial and spaceborne sensors can be
used for watershed characterization, assessing manage-
ment requirements, and periodic monitoring. The various
physiographic measurements that can be obtained from
remotely sensed data are size, shape, topography, drainage
pattern, and landforms. Quantitative analysis of drainage
networks enables relationships among different aspects of
the drainage pattern of a basin to be formulated as general
laws and to define certain useful properties/indexes of the
drainage basin in numerical terms. The laws of stream
numbers, stream length, and stream slopes can be derived
from measurements made in the drainage basin. Remote
sensing along with ground based information in the GIS
mode can used for broad and reconnaissance level inter-
pretations of land capability classes, irrigation suitability
classes, potential land users, responsive water harvesting
areas, monitoring the effects of watershed conservation
measures, correlation for runoff and sediment yields from
different watersheds, and monitoring land use changes
and land degradation.
COMMAND AREA STUDIES
Water management in command areas requires serious
attention in view of the disappointing performance of
our irrigation projects, despite huge investments. The
command area is the total area lying between drainage
boundaries, which can be irrigated by a canal system.
534 REMOTE SENSING AND GIS APPLICATION IN WATER RESOURCES
Remote sensing can play a useful complementary role
in managing the land and water resources of command
areas to maximize production. Management of water
supplies for irrigation in command areas is a critical
problem to tackle with limited quantities. This requires
information on total demand and the distribution of
demand for irrigation in command areas. Moreover, the
vastness of the areas involved, time constraints, and yearly
changes demand fast inventories of conditions. As more
area is brought under irrigation, crop monitoring also
becomes essential for estimating agricultural production
and efficient planning of water management. In all
these, remote sensing can be looked upon as an aid
in planning and decision making. The usefulness of
remote sensing techniques in inventorying irrigated
lands; identifying crop types, their extent, condition;
and production estimation has been demonstrated in
various investigations. Conjunctive use planning of
surface and groundwaters can be done using remotely
sensed information on surface water in conjunction with
ground based data on groundwater availability. This
would permit development of conjunctive use models for
water allocations in a GIS environment.
WATERLOGGING AND SOIL SALINITY
Waterlogging and soil salinity are some of the major
land degradation processes that restrict the economic and
efficient use of soil and land resources in command areas.
To assess waterlogging in command areas, multispectral
and multitemporal remote sensing data are very useful.
The satellite data thus provide a quick and more reliable
delineation of waterlogged areas and standing water.
The spatial distribution of soil affected by ‘‘positional
waterlogging’’ (i.e., that due to its location in the
landscape) can be modeled from digital topographic data
using the concept of contributing area. This waterlogging
depends on two topographic factors: (1) the local slope
angle and (2) the drainage area. The probability of
waterlogging increases with the contributing drainage
area and decreases with increasing local slope angle.
The waterlogging phenomenon is related to topography,
so digital terrain modelling (DTM) can aid in detecting
waterlogged areas. DTM provides information regarding
slope and aspect, which in turn provide information about
the areas that are susceptible to waterlogging.
One of the common practices for observing waterlogged
areas in command areas is to take observations in existing
open wells at regular intervals, twice a year in the pre-
and postmonsoon seasons. Data are also collected on water
quality. The information thus collected is used to draw
hydrographs and the depth of the water table to prepare
maps subsequently. So preparation of these maps can
help a lot in identifying waterlogged zones in a command
area. Using field data, which is available as point data,
groundwater depth distributional maps can be prepared in
the GIS. With the help of these maps, shallow GW areas,
areas susceptible to waterlogging, can be identified. The
areas falling within the 0–1.5 m range generally indicate
waterlogged or salt-affected patches depending primarily
on the soil characteristics, particularly texture.
RESERVOIR SEDIMENTATION
Most common conventional techniques for sedimentation
quantification are (1) direct measurement of sediment
deposition by hydrographic surveys and (2) indirect mea-
surement of sediment concentration by the inflow–outflow
method. Both methods are laborious, time-consuming, and
costly and have their own limitations. Sampling and
measurement of suspended sediments is a tedious and
expensive program for either in situ or laboratory work.
The introduction of remote sensing techniques in the
recent past has made it very cheap and convenient to
quantify sedimentation in a reservoir and to assess its
distribution and deposition pattern. Remote sensing tech-
niques, offering data acquisition over a long time period
and broad spectral range, are superior to conventional
methods for data acquisition. The advantage of satellite
data over conventional sampling procedures include repet-
itive coverage of a given area every 16–22 days, a synoptic
view which is unobtainable by conventional methods, and
almost instantaneous spatial data across the areas of
interest. Remote sensing techniques provide a synoptic
view of a reservoir in a form very different from that
obtained by surface data collection and sampling.
WATER QUALITY STUDIES
Recently, the alarming proportions of water quality
deterioration have necessitated rapid monitoring for
efficient checks to prevent further deterioration and
to cleanse our polluted water resources. Moreover,
surveillance of water quality is an important activity for
multiple uses such as irrigation and water supply. Water
quality is a general term used to describe the physical,
chemical, thermal, and/or biological properties of water.
A combination of ground (water) and remote sensing
measurements are required to collect the data necessary
to develop and calibrate empirical and semiempirical
models and validate the more physically based models.
Water samples analyzed for substances of interest (i.e.,
suspended sediment, chlorophyll) should be collected at
the same time (or on the same day) that the remote
sensing data are collected. Location of sample sites should
be determined by GPS (or other available technique) so
that the correct data (pixel information) can be extracted
from remote sensing for comparison. Remote sensing
applications to water quality are limited to measuring
those substances or conditions that influence and change
the optical and/or thermal characteristics of the apparent
surface water properties. Suspended sediment, chlorophyll
(algae), oil, and temperature are water quality indicators
that can change the spectral and thermal properties of
surface waters and are most readily measured by remote
sensing techniques.
GROUNDWATER STUDIES
A remote sensing system is quite helpful in groundwa-
ter exploration because remotely sensed data provide a
synoptic view of high observational density. The common
 REMOTE SENSING AND GIS APPLICATION IN WATER RESOURCES
current remote sensing platforms record features on the
surface. Most of the information for groundwater, as yet,
has to be obtained by qualitative reasoning and semi-
quantitative approaches. Remotely sensed information is
often surrogate and has to be merged with geohydrologic
data to become meaningful. Vegetation can be used as an
indicator if local knowledge is available and the types can
be identified on the satellite data. Apart from the contri-
bution that remote sensing can make to understanding
regional hydrogeology—necessary for managing ground-
water resources—perhaps the strongest application for
management is the evaluation of recharge, groundwater
drafts for irrigation, and identification of flow systems in
areas where there is a paucity of geohydrologic data. Sur-
face conditions, soils, weathered zones, geomorphology,
and vegetation determine recharge, suitability for artifi-
cial recharge, and soil and water conservation measures
that can affect recharge.
Groundwater vulnerability to pollution is also directly
related to surface conditions. Indexing methods for group
depth to water table, net recharge, topography, impact
of vadose zone media, and hydraulic conductivity of the
aquifer (leading to the acronym DRASTIC) into a relative
ranking scheme use a combination of weights and ratings
to produce numerical values.
HYDROLOGIC MODELING
In the early days, the GIS was used mainly as a hydrologic
mapping tool. Nowadays, it plays a more important
role in hydrologic model studies. Its applications span
a wide range from sophisticated analyses and modeling
of spatial data to simple inventories and management
tools. The GIS has evolved as a highly sophisticated
database management system to put together and store
the voluminous data typically required in hydrologic
modeling. The application of the GIS has enhanced
the capacity of models in data management, parameter
estimation, and presentation of model results, but
the GIS cannot replace hydrologic models in solving
hydrologic problems.
Due to its data handling and manipulation capabilities,
the GIS is increasingly being used as an interface and
data manager for hydrologic models. There are four levels
of linkage of hydrologic model with the GIS. These levels
vary from considering the GIS and the model as separate
systems to fully integrating the model and the GIS.
One typical application of a GIS in watershed analysis
is predicting the spatial variability of surface erosion from
spatial data sets obtained from maps of the vegetative
cover, soils, and slope of the area. Solutions of a surface
erosion (soil loss) prediction model, for example, the
universal soil loss equation (USLE) or its modifications,
combine spatial data sets, their derivatives, and other
information necessary to predict the spatial variability
of surface erosion on a watershed. This analysis can
determine areas of potentially severe surface erosion
and provide an initial step in the appraisal of surface
erosion problems.
535
GIS FOR DECISION MAKING
The GIS is derived from multiple sources of data of
different levels of accuracy. Though a single piece of
data can be assigned an accuracy value, information
derived from multiple sources of inaccurate data can
also be assigned a level of accuracy. In any pictorial
representation of data, uncertainty can be brought in
as one of the dimensions to guide final decision making.
Any decision today has to depend on a variety of factors,
which are available in an information system like the GIS.
However, weighting as well as the proper use of such data
is still problematic.
The decision support system (DSS) can be designed
as an interactive, flexible, and adaptable computer
based information system (CBIS), especially developed to
support the solution of a management problem for decision
making. It uses data, provides an easy interface, and
allows for decision-makers’ own insights to illustrate the
objectives and information characteristics of the various
levels of decision making. DSS provides a framework
for incorporating analytical modeling capabilities with
a database to improve the decision-making process.
Currently available DSS provides primarily for well-
structured problems. It are also being used for decision
making in water resources planning and management.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE NEEDS
Many water resources applications can profit from the
use of remote sensing and the GIS. The reason for
adopting GIS technology is that it allows displaying
spatial information in integrative ways that are readily
comprehensible and visual. Remote sensing is now being
widely regarded as a layer in the GIS. Although remote
sensing is a specialized technique, it is now being accepted
as a basic survey methodology and as a means of
providing data for a resource database. The GIS provides
a methodology by which data layers can be interrelated to
arrive at wider decisions (1).
The research needs in the area of water resources are
as follows:
• A first and very important aspect is data availability
and compatibility in any GIS related study. Spatial
information required for water resources studies
should be readily available for timely execution.
The data banks should provide digitized maps and
their spatial data compatible with various systems.
Such data availability could significantly speed up
the analysis.
• One difficult task in incorporating the GIS in
water resources modeling is interfacing water system
models with the GIS. Automation of interfacing tasks
is one of the areas to be researched in incorporating
the GIS and available models.
• The recent development of the decision support
system (DSS) to assist in water resources decision
making holds the key for integrating the GIS and
water resources models.
536 GLOBALIZATION OF WATER
• Another area of potential research to enhance the
modeling process further is the integration of expert
systems and the GIS. Expert GIS systems can be
used to provide regulatory information by linking
regulatory facts stored in a database to sites located
in a GIS through an expert system query interface.
• Further research is needed for comparing the GIS
packages available on the market and their positive
and negative aspects, providing check lists for
GIS users.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Tsihrintzix, V.A., Hamid, R., and Fuentes, H.R. (1996). Use of
GIS in water resources: a review. Water Resour. Manage. 10:
251–277.
READING LIST
Schultz, G.A. and Engment, E.T. (Eds.). (2000). Remote Sensing
in Hydrology and Water Management. Springer Verlag, New
York.
Rango, A. (1990). Remote sensing of water resources: accomplish-
ments, challenges and relevance to global monitoring. Proc. Int.
Symp. Remote Sensing Water Resour., Enschede, The Nether-
lands, August 20–24.
GLOBALIZATION OF WATER
A.Y. HOEKSTRA
UNESCO–IHE Institute for
Water Education
Delft, The Netherlands
WHY WATER IS A GLOBAL RESOURCE
People in Japan can affect the hydrological system in
the United States. People in Europe can affect regional
water systems in Thailand or Brazil. There are basically
two mechanisms that make global connections between
seemingly local water systems. First, the climate system
connects different places on earth, because evaporation in
one place results in precipitation in another place. The
climate system is inherently global: local emissions of
greenhouse gases contribute to a changing global climate,
thus affecting temperature, evaporation, and precipitation
patterns elsewhere. In this way, human activities in
the economic centers of the world affect base and peak
flows in rivers throughout the world. There is, however,
a second mechanism through which people can affect
water systems in other parts of the world. A European
consumer of Thai rice raises rice demand in Thailand
and subsequently the use of water for rice irrigation in
Thailand. Globally, roughly one-fifth of the water used
in agriculture is applied in areas used for producing
export commodities. This fraction is increasing in line
with the increase of global trade. Scientists have known
for several decades that human activities within a river
basin strongly impact on the water flows and water quality
in such a river basin. It is more recent that scientists have
started to realize that local water problems are often,
in their roots, problems that cannot be solved locally
or regionally, because the driving forces lay outside the
region. The gradual disappearance of the Aral Lake in
Uzbekistan–Kazakhstan, for instance, is directly linked
to the global demand for cotton.
EFFICIENT USE OF THE GLOBAL WATER RESOURCES
According to international trade theory, countries with
abundant water resources might have a comparative
advantage in producing water-intensive goods if compared
to water-poor countries. Since water resources are quite
unevenly distributed over the world, one should not be
surprised that under conditions of free trade water-
intensive production processes get concentrated in the
water-rich parts of the world. A water-scarce country
can thus aim at importing products that require a lot
of water in their production (water-intensive products)
and exporting products or services that require less
water (water-extensive products). This is called import
of virtual water (as opposed to import of real water,
which is generally too expensive) and will relieve the
pressure on the nation’s own water resources. For water-
abundant countries an argument can be made for export of
virtual water. Import of water-intensive products by some
nations and export of these products by others results in
international ‘‘virtual water flows.’’
The idea of achieving ‘‘global water use efficiency’’
through virtual water trade between countries is relatively
new. Traditionally, water managers have focused on
achieving ‘‘local water use efficiency’’ at user level
and ‘‘water allocation efficiency’’ at river basin level.
‘‘Local water use efficiency’’ can be increased by creating
awareness among the water users, by charging prices
based on full marginal cost, and by stimulating water-
saving technology. ‘‘Water allocation efficiency’’ can be
improved by allocating the water within a catchment or
river basin to those types of use where water creates
the highest added value. A key question today is which
level—the user, river basin, or global level—will be most
relevant in increasing overall water use efficiency and
reducing overall impact on the globe’s water systems.
THE CONCEPT OF ‘‘VIRTUAL WATER’’
The volume of virtual water ‘‘hidden’’ or ‘‘embodied’’ in a
particular product is defined as the volume of water used
in the production process of that product (1,2). Not only
agricultural products contain virtual water: most studies
to date have been limited to the study of virtual water
in crops. Industrial products and services also contain
virtual water. As an example of virtual water content,
one often refers to the virtual water content of grains.
It is estimated that for producing 1 kg of grain, grown
under rain-fed and favorable climatic conditions, we need
about 1–2 m3 of water, which is 1000–2000 kg of water.
For the same amount of grain, but growing in an arid
country, where the climatic conditions are not favorable

(high temperature, high evapotranspiration), we need up
to 3000–5000 kg of water.
If one country exports a water-intensive product to
another country, it exports water in virtual form. In
this way, some countries support other countries in their
water needs. Worldwide both politicians and the general
public increasingly show interest in the pros and cons of
‘‘globalization’’ of trade. The tension in the debate relates to
the fact that the game of global competition is played with
rules that many see as unfair. Knowing that economically
sound water pricing is poorly developed in many regions of
the world, this means that many products are put on the
world market at a price that does not properly include the
cost of the water contained in the product. This leads to
situations in which some regions in fact subsidize export
of scarce water.
METHOD TO CALCULATE VIRTUAL WATER FLOWS
Calculation of the Virtual Water Content of a Product
The virtual water content of a product is a function
of the water volumes used in the different stages of
the production process. The virtual water content of a
particular crop in a particular country can, for instance,
be calculated on the basis of country-specific crop water
requirements and crop yields (3):
VWC[n, c] = CWR[n, c]/Y[n, c] (1)
Here, VWC denotes the virtual water content (m3 /ton)
of crop c in country n, CWR the crop water requirement
(m3 /ha), and Y the crop yield (ton/ha). The crop water
requirement can be calculated from the accumulated
crop evapotranspiration ETc (in mm/d) over the complete
growing period. The crop evapotranspiration ETc follows
Net virtual water
import (Gm3/yr)
− 200 -- 100
− 100 -- 50
− 50 -- 10
− 10 - 0
0 - 10
10 - 50
50 - 100
No data
Figure 1. National virtual water balances over the period 1995–1999.
GLOBALIZATION OF WATER 537
from multiplying the ‘‘reference crop evapotranspiration’’
ET0 with the crop coefficient Kc :
ETc = Kc × ET0 (2)
The crop coefficient accounts for the actual crop
canopy and aerodynamic resistance relative to the
hypothetical reference crop. The crop coefficient serves
as an aggregation of the physical and physiological
differences between a certain crop and the reference crop.
The concept of ‘‘reference crop evapotranspiration’’ was
introduced by FAO to study the evaporative demand
of the atmosphere independently of crop type, crop
development, and management practices. The only factors
affecting ET0 are climatic parameters. The reference
crop evapotranspiration ET0 is defined as the rate of
evapotranspiration from a hypothetical reference crop
with an assumed crop height of 12 cm, a fixed crop
surface resistance of 70 s/m, and an albedo of 0.23.
This reference crop evapotranspiration closely resembles
the evapotranspiration from an extensive surface of
green grass cover of uniform height, actively growing,
completely shading the ground, and with adequate
water (4). Reference crop evapotranspiration can be
calculated on the basis of the FAO Penman-Monteith
equation (4,5).
The calculation of the virtual water content of livestock
products is a bit more complex. First, the virtual water
content (m3 /ton) of live animals is calculated, based on
the virtual water content of their feed and the volumes
of drinking and service water consumed during their
lifetime (6). Second, the virtual water content is calculated
for each livestock product, taking into account the product
fraction (ton of product obtained per ton of live animal)
and the value fraction (ratio of value of one product from
an animal to the sum of the market values of all products
from the animal).
Table 1. Water Withdrawals, Virtual Water Import and Export, Water Scarcity, Water Self-sufficiency, and Water
Dependency of Nations (1995–1999)
Gross Virtual Gross Virtual Net Virtual
Water Water Water Water Water Water Water Self- Water
Availability, Withdrawal, Import, Export, Import, Scarcity, sufficiency, Dependency,
Country Population 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr % % %

Afghanistan 25765766 65000 23261 58.5 287.5 −229 36 100 0

Albania 3387574 41700 1714 277.7 14.4 263.2 4 87 13
Algeria 29959010 14320 6074 9810.6 6.9 9803.7 42 38 62
Angola 12771448 184000 343 173.9 5.5 168.4 0 67 33
Argentina 36577450 814000 29072 1486.9 46755.4 −45268.4 4 100 0
Armenia 3798845 10529 2954 316.2 5.5 310.6 28 90 10
Australia 18963804 492000 23932 1011 30130.3 −29119.3 5 100 0
Austria 8095446 77700 2112 1281 976.1 304.9 3 87 13
Azerbaijan 7979460 30275 17247 1004.4 30 974.4 57 95 5
Bahrain 666956 116 299 137.4 0.2 137.1 258 69 31
Bangladesh 128837760 1210644 79394 8304.6 2562.6 5742 7 93 7
Belarus 10039496 58000 2789 1255.9 35 1220.9 5 70 30
Belgium-Lux 10227060 21400 8980 14412.4 2497 11915.4 42 43 57
Benin 6112575 24800 250 472.6 1077.8 −605.3 1 100 0
Bhutan 782229 95000 420 26.5 0 26.5 0 94 6
Bolivia 8139894 622531 1387 674.8 1732.1 −1057.3 0 100 0
Bosnia Herzegovina 3865576 37500 1354 238 63.8 174.2 4 89 11
Brazil 168220660 8233000 59298 23161.6 32161.8 −9000.2 1 100 0
Bulgaria 8213543 21300 10498 288.4 759.7 −471.4 49 100 0
Burkina Faso 11005226 12500 780 68.6 973.4 −904.7 6 100 0
Burundi 6677800 3600 234 3.7 0.3 3.4 6 99 1
Cambodia 11755836 476110 4091 130.1 27.7 102.4 1 98 2
Cameroon 14557762 285500 985 175.3 187.9 −12.6 0 100 0
Canada 30498614 2902000 45974 4814.4 59308.4 −54494 2 100 0
Central African 3657263 144400 22 1.8 2.9 −1.1 0 100 0
Republic
Chad 7492965 43000 234 1.4 0 1.4 1 99 1
Chile 15013962 922000 12539 3262.6 1211.2 2051.4 1 86 14
China 1252042000 2896569 630289 30550.4 10114.9 20435.6 22 97 3
Colombia 41543956 2132000 10711 7535.4 865.2 6670.2 1 62 38
Comoros 544534 1200 13 39.3 0 39.3 1 25 75
Congo 2764600 832000 39 93.4 6.8 86.6 0 31 69
Costa Rica 3731672 112400 2677 1947.7 690 1257.7 2 68 32
Cote d’Ivoire 15580058 81000 931 773.5 83.5 690 1 57 43
Croatia 4395695 105500 1760 569.9 346 223.9 2 89 11
Cuba 11150144 38120 8204 1082.5 1304 −221.5 22 100 0
Czech Republic 10283004 13150 2566 1245.7 761.2 484.5 20 84 16
Denmark 5318089 6000 1267 1382.6 1843.6 −461 21 100 0
Djibouti 620352 300 8 109.5 0.2 109.3 3 7 93
Dominican Republic 8237523 20995 3386 731.8 2663.9 −1932.1 16 100 0
Ecuador 12409904 432000 16980 1594.2 2184.4 −590.2 4 100 0
Egypt 62782964 86800 68653 16937.1 901.6 16035.5 79 81 19
El Salvador 6155042 25230 1273 1142.3 94.6 1047.7 5 55 45
Eritrea 3988805 6300 304 74.8 0.3 74.6 5 80 20
Estonia 1388705 12808 163 631 100.4 530.6 1 24 76
Ethiopia 62782412 110000 2648 349.1 22.7 326.4 2 89 11
Fiji 802087 28550 69 174.6 0 174.6 0 28 72
Finland 5164368 110000 2478 918.9 1091.8 −172.9 2 100 0
France 58656600 203700 39959 9376.3 27051.4 −17675.1 20 100 0
Gabon 1198661 164000 128 100.7 0.7 100 0 56 44
Gambia 1263370 8000 32 319.3 164.2 155.1 0 17 83
Georgia 5188007 63330 3607 308.4 103 205.4 6 95 5
Germany 82109980 154000 47052 23260.4 9671.3 13589.1 31 78 22
Ghana 18875980 53200 520 671.2 217.5 453.8 1 53 47
Greece 10537058 74250 7759 3121.4 5088 −1966.6 10 100 0
Guatemala 11095762 111270 2005 1195.1 15536.6 −14341.5 2 100 0
Guinea Bissau 1174665 31000 110 8.3 5.4 2.9 0 97 3
Guyana 757015 241000 1642 67.9 226.6 −158.7 1 100 0
Haiti 7803032 14025 984 389 0 389 7 72 28
Honduras 6257825 95929 860 799.1 331.7 467.4 1 65 35
Hungary 10221682 104000 7641 635.6 4589.6 −3954 7 100 0
Iceland 277700 170000 153 64.8 1.6 63.2 0 71 29
India 997775760 1907760 645837 2413 34612.3 −32199.3 34 100 0
Indonesia 207029780 2838000 82773 21366.2 1139.2 20227 3 80 20
Iran 62762116 137510 72877 6623.1 803.4 5819.7 53 93 7
Iraq 22797032 96420 42702 1100.7 3.3 1097.4 44 97 3

538
 Table 1. (Continued)
Gross Virtual Gross Virtual Net Virtual
Water Water Water Water Water Water Water Self- Water
Availability, Withdrawal, Import, Export, Import, Scarcity, sufficiency, Dependency,
Country Population 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr % % %

Ireland 3752276 52000 1129 945.8 201.9 743.9 2 60 40

Israel 6100032 1670 2041 5188.1 589.9 4598.2 122 31 69
Italy 57627528 191300 44372 19625.8 6762.1 12863.7 23 78 22
Jamaica 2604246 9404 409 392.8 137.3 255.5 4 62 38
Japan 126624200 430000 88432 59632 188.4 59443.6 21 60 40
Jordan 4742815 880 1016 4536 55 4481 115 18 82
Kazakhstan 109610 35008 41.8 7876 −7834.2 32 100 0
Kenya 29402552 30200 1576 970.2 169.7 800.5 5 66 34
Korea, Democratic 22141004 77135 9024 643 2.2 640.8 12 93 7
People’s Republic
Korea, Republic 46839720 69700 18590 22582.6 69 22513.6 27 45 55
Kuwait 1925635 20 445 497.8 0.1 497.7 2227 47 53
Kyrgyzstan 4844973 46450 10080 192.5 145.2 47.3 22 100 0
Lao 5159165 333550 2993 94.2 1.7 92.5 1 97 3
Latvia 2408205 35449 293 301.4 53.4 248 1 54 46
Lebanon 4267969 4837 1372 776.2 29.4 746.8 28 65 35
Liberia 3046804 232000 107 67.5 1.7 65.7 0 62 38
Libya 5176657 600 4811 789.1 45.4 743.7 802 87 13
Lithuania 3531820 24900 267 500.4 383.9 116.5 1 70 30
Macedonia 2020714 6400 847 149 97.9 51.1 13 94 6
Madagascar 15057966 337000 14970 320 131.7 188.3 4 99 1
Malawi 10096722 17280 1005 25.9 786.6 −760.8 6 100 0
Malaysia 22724518 580000 9016 11508.3 1255.9 10252.4 2 47 53
Mali 10588286 100000 6930 79.8 14.9 65 7 99 1
Mauritania 2579964 11400 1698 375.7 0.6 375.1 15 82 18
Mauritius 1173176 2210 612 564.7 274.9 289.7 28 68 32
Mexico 96615488 457222 78219 24361.3 15374.7 8986.7 17 90 10
Moldova Republic 4291104 11650 2308 82.8 455.5 −372.7 20 100 0
Mongolia 2377183 34800 444 24.6 10.1 14.5 1 97 3
Morocco 28240226 29000 12758 5617.8 87.4 5530.4 44 70 30
Mozambique 17331232 216110 635 337 85.1 251.9 0 72 28
Myanmar 47134402 1045601 33224 21.1 3501.3 −3480.2 3 100 0
Nepal 22507210 210200 10177 47.6 19 28.6 5 100 0
Netherlands 15812200 91000 7944 35002.3 5462.6 29539.7 9 21 79
New Zealand 3808760 327000 2111 1000.6 113.1 887.5 1 70 30
Nicaragua 4940828 196690 1300 583.6 333.1 250.5 1 84 16
Niger 10478080 33650 2187 309.5 107.9 201.6 6 92 8
Nigeria 123837060 286200 8004 5796.4 934.4 4862 3 62 38
Norway 4461300 382000 2185 2214.7 11.1 2203.6 1 50 50
Oman 2350640 985 1350 1228.1 119.6 1108.5 137 55 45
Pakistan 134871900 233770 169384 2547.1 2556.8 −9.8 72 100 0
Panama 2810118 147980 824 539.8 331.1 208.7 1 80 20
Papua New Guinea 5006703 801000 75 48.9 20.4 28.5 0 72 28
Paraguay 5358929 336000 489 343 8768.1 −8425.1 0 100 0
Peru 25230198 1913000 20132 5566.3 143.5 5422.8 1 79 21
Philippines 74178100 479000 28520 8206.7 7242 964.7 6 97 3
Poland 38654642 61600 16201 4210.1 452.4 3757.7 26 81 19
Portugal 10028200 77400 11263 6758 529.9 6228.1 15 64 36
Qatar 563710 53 294 59.3 0 59.3 554 83 17
Romania 22469358 211930 23176 877.7 2701.2 −1823.5 11 100 0
Russian Federation 146180880 4507250 76686 14534.5 12079.6 2454.9 2 97 3
Rwanda 8304804 5200 76 93 0.2 92.9 1 45 55
South Africa 42043988 50000 15306 6927.6 2558.3 4369.3 31 78 22
Saudi Arabia 20239432 2400 17320 11313.3 435.2 10878.1 722 61 39
Senegal 9279048 39400 1591 2680.4 43.6 2636.8 4 38 62
Sierra Leone 4932139 160000 380 83.2 0.6 82.6 0 82 18
Singapore 3957913 600 211 3839.2 435.2 3404.1 35 6 94
Slovakia 5395677 50100 1818 386.6 977.4 −590.8 4 100 0
Slovenia 1986239 31870 762 1062.9 21.8 1041.1 2 42 58
Somalia 8480576 13500 3298 299.7 22.7 277.1 24 92 8
Spain 39415552 111500 35635 22124.6 5621 16503.6 32 68 32
Sudan 30534126 149000 37314 561.3 1712.3 −1151.1 25 100 0
Suriname 415105 122000 665 27.5 114.5 −86.9 1 100 0
Sweden 8864128 174000 2965 737.3 1577.2 −839.9 2 100 0
Switzerland 7145332 53500 2571 2098.9 162.5 1936.5 5 57 43
Syria 15798242 46080 19947 884.5 5263.2 −4378.6 43 100 0
Tajikistan 6138744 99730 11962 46.7 83.7 −37.1 12 100 0
Tanzania 32902714 91000 1996 1211.5 283.5 928.1 2 68 32
(continued overleaf )
539
540 GLOBALIZATION OF WATER

Table 1. (Continued)
Gross Virtual Gross Virtual Net Virtual
Water Water Water Water Water Water Water Self- Water
Availability, Withdrawal, Import, Export, Import, Scarcity, sufficiency, Dependency,
Country Population 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr 106 m3 /yr % % %

Thailand 60275202 409944 87065 4098 50763.3 −46665.4 21 100 0

Togo 4392474 14700 166 851.6 214.8 636.8 1 21 79
Trinidad Tobago 1293248 3840 305 679.6 90.6 589 8 34 66
Tunisia 9448461 4560 2726 3925.1 57.8 3867.4 60 41 59
Turkey 64341266 231700 37519 10297.6 8244.4 2053.1 16 95 5
Turkmenistan 5057637 60860 24645 57.4 0.6 56.9 40 100 0
Uganda 21616208 66000 295 208.8 294.8 −86 0 100 0
Ukraine 49904874 139550 37523 468.9 6832.6 −6363.8 27 100 0
United Arab Emirates 2800073 150 2306 2109.4 418.1 1691.2 1538 58 42
United Kingdom 59481556 147000 9541 14204.1 15174.5 −970.4 6 100 0
Uruguay 3312629 139000 3146 821.8 3223.3 −2401.5 2 100 0
United States 278035840 3069400 479293 29264.3 180924.3 −151660 16 100 0
Uzbekistan 24394002 72210 58334 532.7 123.7 409 81 99 1
Venezuela 23705676 1233170 8368 6250.8 1325.2 4925.6 1 63 37
Viet Nam 77508750 891210 71392 153.8 18185.7 −18031.9 8 100 0
Yemen 17056736 4100 6631 1448.9 11.5 1437.4 162 82 18
Zambia 9872326 105200 1737 34.8 132.9 −98.1 2 100 0
Zimbabwe 12382668 20000 2612 115.8 633.3 −517.5 13 100 0

Source: Reference 3.

Calculation of International Virtual Water Flows and
Drawing a National Virtual Water Balance
Virtual water flows between nations can be calculated
by multiplying international product trade flows by their
associated virtual water content. The latter depends on the
water needs in the exporting country where the product is
produced. Virtual water trade is thus calculated as
VWT[ne , ni , p, t] = PT[ne , ni , p, t] × VWC[ne , p, t]
in which VWT denotes the virtual water trade (m3 /yr)
from exporting country ne to importing country ni in
year t as a result of trade in product p. PT represents
the product trade (ton/yr) from exporting country ne
to importing country ni in year t for product p. VWC
represents the virtual water content (m3 /ton) of product p
in the exporting country.
The gross virtual water import (GVWI) to a country
is the sum of all product-related virtual water imports.
The gross virtual water export (GVWE) from a country
is the sum of all product-related virtual water exports.
The virtual water balance of country x for year t can be
written as
NVWI[x, t] = GVWI[x, t] − GVWE[x, t],
where NVWI stands for the net virtual water import
(m3 /yr) to the country. Net virtual water import to a
country has either a positive or a negative sign. The
latter indicates that there is net virtual water export from
the country.
GLOBAL VIRTUAL WATER FLOWS
The global volume of international virtual water flows
is roughly 1000 billion m3 /yr (7). For comparison, the
total water use by crops in the world has been estimated
at 5400 Gm3 /yr. These figures show that a substantial
volume of water serves the global market. Countries
with a large virtual water export are the United States,
Canada, Thailand, Argentina, and India. Large importers
of virtual water are Europe (except France), Japan, China,
and Indonesia.
National virtual water balances over the period
1995–1999 are shown in Fig. 1. Full data on virtual
water imports and exports are provided in Table 1. Some
(3)
countries, such as Brazil, Syria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and
Uganda, have net export of virtual water over the period
1995–1999, but net import of virtual water in one or more
particular years in this period. There are also countries
that show the reverse, such as the Philippines, the
Russian Federation, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyztan, Mongolia,
Nicaragua, and Mexico. Developed countries generally
have a more stable virtual water balance than the
developing countries.
Countries that are relatively close to each other in terms
of geography and development level can have a rather
different virtual water balance. While European countries
such as The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain, and
Italy import virtual water in the form of crops, France
exports a large amount of virtual water. In the Middle East
(4) we see that Syria has net export of virtual water related
to crop trade, but Jordan and Israel have net import. In
Southern Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia had net export in
the period 1995–1999, but South Africa had net import.
(It should be noted that the balance of Zimbabwe has
recently turned due to the recent political and economic
developments.) In regions of the former Soviet Union,
countries such as Kazakhstan and the Ukraine have net
export of virtual water, but the Russian Federation has
net import.
Net virtual water flows between thirteen world regions
in the period 1995–1999 are shown in Fig. 2. The largest
virtual water flows have been indicated with arrows.
Regions with a significant net virtual water import are
 WATER SCIENCE GLOSSARY OF TERMS 541

Figure 2. Virtual water balances of thirteen world regions over the period 1995–1999. The
arrows show the largest net virtual water flows between regions (>20 Gm3 /yr).

Central and South Asia, Western Europe, North Africa,
and the Middle East. Two other regions with net virtual
water import, but less substantial, are southern Africa and
Central Africa. Regions with substantial net virtual water
export are North America, South America, Oceania, and
Southeast Asia. Three other regions with net virtual water
export, but less substantial, are the former Soviet Union,
Central America, and Eastern Europe. North America is
by far the biggest virtual water exporter in the world,
while Central and South Asia is by far the biggest virtual
water importer. Central and South Asia is the largest
region in terms of population, so food demand is higher
than in the other regions. This explains why the region
is the biggest virtual water importer. The virtual water
flows between countries within the region are also high,
thus the countries within the region highly depend on
both countries outside and countries within the region.
Western Europe is the region with the biggest volume of
internal virtual water flows. Besides, the volume appears
to be rather stable over the years.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Allan, J.A. (1997). Virtual Water: A Long Term Solution for
Water Short Middle Eastern Economies? Occasional Paper 3,
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of
London.
2. Hoekstra, A.Y. (1998). Perspectives on Water: A Model-Based
Exploration of the Future. International Books, Utrecht, The
Netherlands.
3. Hoekstra, A.Y. and Hung, P.Q. (2002). Virtual Water Trade:
a Quantification of Virtual Water Flows Between Nations in
Relation to International Crop Trade. Value of Water Research
Report Ser. No. 11, UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands.
4. Smith, M., Allen, R.G., Monteith, J.L., Perrier, A., Pereira,
L.S., and Segeren, A. (1992). Report on the Expert Consultation
on Revision of FAO Methodologies for Crop Water Require-
ments. FAO, Rome, Italy, 28–31 May 1990.
5. Allen, R.G., Pereira, L.S., Raes, D., and Smith, M. (1998). Crop
Evapotranspiration: Guidelines for Computing Crop Water
Requirements. FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56, FAO,
Rome, Italy.
6. Chapagain, A.K. and Hoekstra, A.Y. (2003). Virtual Water
Flows Between Nations in Relation to Trade in Livestock
and Livestock Products. Value of Water Research Report Ser.
No. 13, UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands.
7. Hoekstra, A.Y. (Ed.) (2003). Virtual water trade. In: Proceed-
ings of the International Expert Meeting on Virtual Water
Trade. Value of Water Research Report Ser. No. 12, UNESCO-
IHE, Delft, The Netherlands.
WATER SCIENCE GLOSSARY OF TERMS
U.S. Geological Survey
Here’s a list of water-related terms that might help you
understand our site better. It is compiled from a number
of sources and should not be considered an ‘‘official’’
U.S. Geological Survey water glossary. A detailed water
glossary is kept by the Water Quality Association, and
an extremely detailed water dictionary is offered by the
Nevada Division of Water Planning.
A
acequia–acequias were important forms of irrigation
in the development of agriculture in the American
Southwest. The proliferation of cotton, pecans and green
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the
public domain in the United States of America.
542 WATER SCIENCE GLOSSARY OF TERMS
chile as major agricultural staples owe their progress to
the acequia system.
acid–a substance that has a pH of less than 7, which is
neutral. Specifically, an acid has more free hydrogen ions
(H+ ) than hydroxyl ions (OH− ).
acre-foot (acre-ft)–the volume of water required to
cover 1 acre of land (43,560 square feet) to a depth of 1
foot. Equal to 325,851 gallons or 1,233 cubic meters.
alkaline–sometimes water or soils contain an amount
of alkali (strongly basic) substances sufficient to raise
the pH value above 7.0 and be harmful to the growth of
crops.
alkalinity–the capacity of water for neutralizing an
acid solution.
alluvium–deposits of clay, silt, sand, gravel, or other
particulate material that has been deposited by a stream
or other body of running water in a streambed, on a flood
plain, on a delta, or at the base of a mountain.
appropriation doctrine–the system for allocating
water to private individuals used in most Western states.
The doctrine of Prior Appropriation was in common use
throughout the arid west as early settlers and miners
began to develop the land. The prior appropriation doctrine
is based on the concept of ‘‘First in Time, First in Right.’’
The first person to take a quantity of water and put
it to Beneficial Use has a higher priority of right than
a subsequent user. Under drought conditions, higher
priority users are satisfied before junior users receive
water. Appropriative rights can be lost through nonuse;
they can also be sold or transferred apart from the land.
Contrasts with Riparian Water Rights.
aquaculture–farming of plants and animals that live
in water, such as fish, shellfish, and algae.
aqueduct–a pipe, conduit, or channel designed to
transport water from a remote source, usually by gravity.
aquifer–a geologic formation(s) that is water bearing.
A geological formation or structure that stores and/or
transmits water, such as to wells and springs. Use of
the term is usually restricted to those water-bearing
formations capable of yielding water in sufficient quantity
to constitute a usable supply for people’s uses.
aquifer (confined)–soil or rock below the land
surface that is saturated with water. There are layers
of impermeable material both above and below it and it is
under pressure so that when the aquifer is penetrated by
a well, the water will rise above the top of the aquifer.
aquifer (unconfined)–an aquifer whose upper water
surface (water table) is at atmospheric pressure, and thus
is able to rise and fall.
artesian water–ground water that is under pressure
when tapped by a well and is able to rise above the level at
which it is first encountered. It may or may not flow out at
ground level. The pressure in such an aquifer commonly
is called artesian pressure, and the formation containing
artesian water is an artesian aquifer or confined aquifer.
See flowing well
artificial recharge–an process where water is put
back into ground-water storage from surface-water
supplies such as irrigation, or induced infiltration from
streams or wells.
B
base flow–streamflow coming from ground-water seepage
into a stream.
base–a substance that has a pH of more than 7, which
is neutral. A base has less free hydrogen ions (H+ ) than
hydroxyl ions (OH− ).
bedrock–the solid rock beneath the soil and superficial
rock. A general term for solid rock that lies beneath soil,
loose sediments, or other unconsolidated material.
C
capillary action–the means by which liquid moves
through the porous spaces in a solid, such as soil, plant
roots, and the capillary blood vessels in our bodies due
to the forces of adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension.
Capillary action is essential in carrying substances and
nutrients from one place to another in plants and animals.
commercial water use–water used for motels, hotels,
restaurants, office buildings, other commercial facilities,
and institutions. Water for commercial uses comes both
from public-supplied sources, such as a county water
department, and self-supplied sources, such as local wells.
condensation–the process of water vapor in the air
turning into liquid water. Water drops on the outside of a
cold glass of water are condensed water. Condensation is
the opposite process of evaporation.
consumptive use–that part of water withdrawn that
is evaporated, transpired by plants, incorporated into
products or crops, consumed by humans or livestock, or
otherwise removed from the immediate water environ-
ment. Also referred to as water consumed.
conveyance loss–water that is lost in transit from a
pipe, canal, or ditch by leakage or evaporation. Generally,
the water is not available for further use; however, leakage
from an irrigation ditch, for example, may percolate to a
ground-water source and be available for further use.
cubic feet per second (cfs)–a rate of the flow, in
streams and rivers, for example. It is equal to a volume of
water one foot high and one foot wide flowing a distance
of one foot in one second. One ‘‘cfs’’ is equal to 7.48 gallons
of water flowing each second. As an example, if your car’s
gas tank is 2 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot (2 cubic feet), then gas
flowing at a rate of 1 cubic foot/second would fill the tank
in two seconds.
D
desalinization–the removal of salts from saline water
to provide freshwater. This method is becoming a more
popular way of providing freshwater to populations.
discharge–the volume of water that passes a given
location within a given period of time. Usually expressed
in cubic feet per second.
domestic water use–water used for household
purposes, such as drinking, food preparation, bathing,
washing clothes, dishes, and dogs, flushing toilets, and
watering lawns and gardens. About 85% of domestic water
is delivered to homes by a public-supply facility, such as

a county water department. About 15% of the Nation’s
population supply their own water, mainly from wells.
drainage basin–land area where precipitation runs
off into streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. It is a land
feature that can be identified by tracing a line along the
highest elevations between two areas on a map, often a
ridge. Large drainage basins, like the area that drains
into the Mississippi River contain thousands of smaller
drainage basins. Also called a ‘‘watershed.’’
drip irrigation–a common irrigation method where
pipes or tubes filled with water slowly drip onto crops.
Drip irrigation is a low-pressure method of irrigation
and less water is lost to evaporation than high-pressure
spray irrigation.
drawdown–a lowering of the ground-water surface
caused by pumping.
E The disorder is more prevalent in children than in adults
effluent–water that flows from a sewage treatment plant
after it has been treated.
erosion–the process in which a material is worn away
by a stream of liquid (water) or air, often due to the
presence of abrasive particles in the stream.
estuary–a place where fresh and salt water mix, such
as a bay, salt marsh, or where a river enters an ocean.
evaporation–the process of liquid water becoming
water vapor, including vaporization from water surfaces,
land surfaces, and snow fields, but not from leaf surfaces.
See transpiration
evapotranspiration–the sum of evaporation and
transpiration.
F
flood–An overflow of water onto lands that are used or
usable by man and not normally covered by water. Floods
have two essential characteristics: The inundation of land
is temporary; and the land is adjacent to and inundated
by overflow from a river, stream, lake, or ocean.
flood, 100-year–A 100-year flood does not refer to a
flood that occurs once every 100 years, but to a flood level
with a 1 percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in
any given year.
flood plain–a strip of relatively flat and normally dry
land alongside a stream, river, or lake that is covered by
water during a flood.
flood stage–The elevation at which overflow of the
natural banks of a stream or body of water begins in the
reach or area in which the elevation is measured.
flowing well/spring–a well or spring that taps ground
water under pressure so that water rises without pumping.
If the water rises above the surface, it is known as a
flowing well.
freshwater, fresh water–water that contains less
than 1,000 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of dissolved solids;
generally, more than 500 mg/L of dissolved solids is
undesirable for drinking and many industrial uses.
WATER SCIENCE GLOSSARY OF TERMS 543
G
gage height–the height of the water surface above
the gage datum (zero point). Gage height is often used
interchangeably with the more general term, stage,
although gage height is more appropriate when used with
a gage reading.
gaging station–a site on a stream, lake, reservoir or
other body of water where observations and hydrologic
data are obtained. The U.S. Geological Survey measures
stream discharge at gaging stations.
geyser–a geothermal feature of the Earth where there
is an opening in the surface that contains superheated
water that periodically erupts in a shower of water
and steam.
giardiasis–a disease that results from an infection
by the protozoan parasite Giardia Intestinalis, caused by
drinking water that is either not filtered or not chlorinated.
and is characterized by abdominal discomfort, nausea, and
alternating constipation and diarrhea.
glacier–a huge mass of ice, formed on land by the
compaction and recrystallization of snow, that moves very
slowly downslope or outward due to its own weight.
greywater–wastewater from clothes washing
machines, showers, bathtubs, hand washing, lavatories
and sinks.
ground water–(1) water that flows or seeps downward
and saturates soil or rock, supplying springs and wells. The
upper surface of the saturate zone is called the water table.
(2) Water stored underground in rock crevices and in the
pores of geologic materials that make up the Earth’s crust.
ground water, confined–ground water under pres-
sure significantly greater than atmospheric, with its upper
limit the bottom of a bed with hydraulic conductivity
distinctly lower than that of the material in which the
confined water occurs.
ground-water recharge–inflow of water to a ground-
water reservoir from the surface. Infiltration of precipi-
tation and its movement to the water table is one form
of natural recharge. Also, the volume of water added by
this process.
ground water, unconfined–water in an aquifer that
has a water table that is exposed to the atmosphere.
H
hardness–a water-quality indication of the concentration
of alkaline salts in water, mainly calcium and magnesium.
If the water you use is ‘‘hard’’ then more soap, detergent
or shampoo is necessary to raise a lather.
headwater(s)–(1) the source and upper reaches of a
stream; also the upper reaches of a reservoir; (2) the water
upstream from a structure or point on a stream; (3) the
small streams that come together to form a river. Also may
be thought of as any and all parts of a river basin except
the mainstream river and main tributaries.
hydroelectric power water use–the use of water in
the generation of electricity at plants where the turbine
generators are driven by falling water.
544 WATER SCIENCE GLOSSARY OF TERMS
hydrologic cycle–the cyclic transfer of water vapor
from the Earth’s surface via evapotranspiration into the
atmosphere, from the atmosphere via precipitation back to
earth, and through runoff into streams, rivers, and lakes,
and ultimately into the oceans.
I tion of a constituent in water or wastewater. It represents
impermeable layer–a layer of solid material, such as
rock or clay, which does not allow water to pass through.
industrial water use–water used for industrial
purposes in such industries as steel, chemical, paper, and
petroleum refining. Nationally, water for industrial uses
comes mainly (80%) from self-supplied sources, such as
a local wells or withdrawal points in a river, but some
water comes from public-supplied sources, such as the
county/city water department.
infiltration–flow of water from the land surface into
the subsurface.
injection well–refers to a well constructed for the
purpose of injecting treated wastewater directly into the
ground. Wastewater is generally forced (pumped) into the
well for dispersal or storage into a designated aquifer.
Injection wells are generally drilled into aquifers that
don’t deliver drinking water, unused aquifers, or below
freshwater levels.
irrigation–the controlled application of water for
agricultural purposes through manmade systems to
supply water requirements not satisfied by rainfall. Here’s
a quick look at some types of irrigation systems.
irrigation water use–water application on lands to
assist in the growing of crops and pastures or to maintain
vegetative growth in recreational lands, such as parks and
golf courses.
K urban backyards. As this runoff moves across the land
kilogram–one thousand grams.
kilowatt-hour (KWH)–a power demand of 1,000
watts for one hour. Power company utility rates are
typically expressed in cents per kilowatt-hour.
L stances made by living organisms. All are based upon
leaching–the process by which soluble materials in
the soil, such as salts, nutrients, pesticide chemicals or
contaminants, are washed into a lower layer of soil or are
dissolved and carried away by water.
lentic waters–ponds or lakes (standing water).
levee–a natural or manmade earthen barrier along the
edge of a stream, lake, or river. Land alongside rivers can
be protected from flooding by levees.
livestock water use–water used for livestock water-
ing, feed lots, dairy operations, fish farming, and other
on-farm needs.
lotic waters–flowing waters, as in streams and rivers.
M P
maximum contaminant level (MCL)–the designation
given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
to water-quality standards promulgated under the Safe
Drinking Water Act. The MCL is the greatest amount
of a contaminant that can be present in drinking water
without causing a risk to human health.
milligram (mg)–One-thousandth of a gram.
milligrams per liter (mg/l)–a unit of the concentra-
0.001 gram of a constituent in 1 liter of water. It is
approximately equal to one part per million (PPM).
million gallons per day (Mgd)–a rate of flow of water
equal to 133,680.56 cubic feet per day, or 1.5472 cubic feet
per second, or 3.0689 acre-feet per day. A flow of one
million gallons per day for one year equals 1,120 acre-feet
(365 million gallons).
mining water use–water use during quarrying rocks
and extracting minerals from the land.
municipal water system–a water system that has at
least five service connections or which regularly serves 25
individuals for 60 days; also called a public water system
N
nephelometric turbidity unit (NTU)–unit of measure
for the turbidity of water. Essentially, a measure of
the cloudiness of water as measured by a nephelometer.
Turbidity is based on the amount of light that is reflected
off particles in the water.
non-point source (NPS) pollution–pollution dis-
charged over a wide land area, not from one specific
location. These are forms of diffuse pollution caused by
sediment, nutrients, organic and toxic substances origi-
nating from land-use activities, which are carried to lakes
and streams by surface runoff. Non-point source pollution
is contamination that occurs when rainwater, snowmelt,
or irrigation washes off plowed fields, city streets, or sub-
surface, it picks up soil particles and pollutants, such as
nutrients and pesticides.
O
organic matter–plant and animal residues, or sub-
carbon compounds.
osmosis–the movement of water molecules through a
thin membrane. The osmosis process occurs in our bodies
and is also one method of desalinizing saline water.
outfall–the place where a sewer, drain, or stream dis-
charges; the outlet or structure through which reclaimed
water or treated effluent is finally discharged to a receiving
water body.
oxygen demand–the need for molecular oxygen to
meet the needs of biological and chemical processes
in water. Even though very little oxygen will dissolve
in water, it is extremely important in biological and
chemical processes.
pH–a measure of the relative acidity or alkalinity of water.
Water with a pH of 7 is neutral; lower pH levels indicate

increasing acidity, while pH levels higher than 7 indicate
increasingly basic solutions.
View a diagram about pH.
particle size–the diameter, in millimeters, of sus-
pended sediment or bed material. Particle-size classifica-
tions are:
[1] Clay 0.00024–0.004 millimeters (mm);
[2] Silt 0.004–0.062 mm;
[3] Sand 0.062–2.0 mm; and
[4] Gravel 2.0–64.0 mm.
parts per billion–the number of ‘‘parts’’ by weight of
a substance per billion parts of water. Used to measure
extremely small concentrations.
parts per million–the number of ‘‘parts’’ by weight
of a substance per million parts of water. This unit is
commonly used to represent pollutant concentrations.
pathogen–a disease-producing agent; usually applied
to a living organism. Generally, any viruses, bacteria, or
fungi that cause disease.
peak flow–the maximum instantaneous discharge of
a stream or river at a given location. It usually occurs at
or near the time of maximum stage.
per capita use–the average amount of water used per
person during a standard time period, generally per day.
percolation–(1) The movement of water through the
openings in rock or soil. (2) the entrance of a portion of
the streamflow into the channel materials to contribute to
ground water replenishment.
permeability–the ability of a material to allow
the passage of a liquid, such as water through rocks.
Permeable materials, such as gravel and sand, allow water
to move quickly through them, whereas unpermeable
material, such as clay, don’t allow water to flow freely.
point-source pollution–water pollution coming from
a single point, such as a sewage-outflow pipe.
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)–a group of
synthetic, toxic industrial chemical compounds once used
in making paint and electrical transformers, which are
chemically inert and not biodegradable. PCBs were
frequently found in industrial wastes, and subsequently
found their way into surface and ground waters. As a
result of their persistence, they tend to accumulate in the
environment. In terms of streams and rivers, PCBs are
drawn to sediment, to which they attach and can remain
virtually indefinitely. Although virtually banned in 1979
with the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act, they
continue to appear in the flesh of fish and other animals.
porosity–a measure of the water-bearing capacity of
subsurface rock. With respect to water movement, it is
not just the total magnitude of porosity that is important,
but the size of the voids and the extent to which they are
interconnected, as the pores in a formation may be open, or
interconnected, or closed and isolated. For example, clay
may have a very high porosity with respect to potential
water content, but it constitutes a poor medium as an
aquifer because the pores are usually so small.
potable water–water of a quality suitable for drink-
ing.
precipitation–rain, snow, hail, sleet, dew, and frost.
WATER SCIENCE GLOSSARY OF TERMS 545
primary wastewater treatment–the first stage
of the wastewater-treatment process where mechanical
methods, such as filters and scrapers, are used to remove
pollutants. Solid material in sewage also settles out in
this process.
prior appropriation doctrine–the system for allo-
cating water to private individuals used in most Western
states. The doctrine of Prior Appropriation was in com-
mon use throughout the arid West as early settlers and
miners began to develop the land. The prior appropriation
doctrine is based on the concept of ‘‘First in Time, First in
Right.’’ The first person to take a quantity of water and
put it to beneficial use has a higher priority of right than
a subsequent user. The rights can be lost through nonuse;
they can also be sold or transferred apart from the land.
Contrasts with riparian water rights.
public supply–water withdrawn by public govern-
ments and agencies, such as a county water department,
and by private companies that is then delivered to users.
Public suppliers provide water for domestic, commercial,
thermoelectric power, industrial, and public water users.
Most people’s household water is delivered by a public
water supplier. The systems have at least 15 service con-
nections (such as households, businesses, or schools) or
regularly serve at least 25 individuals daily for at least 60
days out of the year.
public water use–water supplied from a public-water
supply and used for such purposes as firefighting, street
washing, and municipal parks and swimming pools.
R
rating curve–A drawn curve showing the relation
between gage height and discharge of a stream at a given
gaging station.
recharge–water added to an aquifer. For instance,
rainfall that seeps into the ground.
reclaimed wastewater–treated wastewater that can
be used for beneficial purposes, such as irrigating
certain plants.
recycled water–water that is used more than one
time before it passes back into the natural hydro-
logic system.
reservoir–a pond, lake, or basin, either natural or
artificial, for the storage, regulation, and control of water.
return flow–(1) That part of a diverted flow that is
not consumptively used and returned to its original source
or another body of water. (2) (Irrigation) Drainage water
from irrigated farmlands that re-enters the water system
to be used further downstream.
returnflow (irrigation)–irrigation water that is
applied to an area and which is not consumed in
evaporation or transpiration and returns to a surface
stream or aquifer.
reverse osmosis–(1) (Desalination) The process of
removing salts from water using a membrane. With
reverse osmosis, the product water passes through a fine
membrane that the salts are unable to pass through,
while the salt waste (brine) is removed and disposed. This
process differs from electrodialysis, where the salts are
extracted from the feedwater by using a membrane with
546 WATER SCIENCE GLOSSARY OF TERMS
an electrical current to separate the ions. The positive ions
go through one membrane, while the negative ions flow
through a different membrane, leaving the end product
of freshwater. (2) (Water Quality) An advanced method
of water or wastewater treatment that relies on a semi-
permeable membrane to separate waters from pollutants.
An external force is used to reverse the normal osmotic
process resulting in the solvent moving from a solution of
higher concentration to one of lower concentration.
riparian water rights–the rights of an owner whose
land abuts water. They differ from state to state and often
depend on whether the water is a river, lake, or ocean.
The doctrine of riparian rights is an old one, having its
origins in English common law. Specifically, persons who
own land adjacent to a stream have the right to make
reasonable use of the stream. Riparian users of a stream
share the streamflow among themselves, and the concept
of priority of use (Prior Appropriation Doctrine) is not
applicable. Riparian rights cannot be sold or transferred
for use on nonriparian land.
river–A natural stream of water of considerable
volume, larger than a brook or creek.
runoff–(1) That part of the precipitation, snow melt,
or irrigation water that appears in uncontrolled surface
streams, rivers, drains or sewers. Runoff may be classified
according to speed of appearance after rainfall or melting
snow as direct runoff or base runoff, and according to
source as surface runoff, storm interflow, or ground-water
runoff. (2) The total discharge described in (1), above,
during a specified period of time. (3) Also defined as the
depth to which a drainage area would be covered if all
of the runoff for a given period of time were uniformly
distributed over it.
S which wastewater contaminated with solid pollutants
saline water–water that contains significant amounts of
dissolved solids.
Here are our parameters for saline water:
Fresh water. Less than 1,000 parts per million (ppm)
Slightly saline water. From 1,000 ppm to 3,000 ppm
Moderately saline water. From 3,000 ppm to
10,000 ppm
Highly saline water. From 10,000 ppm to 35,000 ppm
secondary wastewater treatment–treatment (fol-
lowing primary wastewater treatment) involving the bio-
logical process of reducing suspended, colloidal, and dis-
solved organic matter in effluent from primary treatment
systems and which generally removes 80 to 95 percent
of the Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and sus-
pended matter. Secondary wastewater treatment may
be accomplished by biological or chemical-physical meth-
ods. Activated sludge and trickling filters are two of
the most common means of secondary treatment. It is
accomplished by bringing together waste, bacteria, and
oxygen in trickling filters or in the activated sludge pro-
cess. This treatment removes floating and settleable solids
and about 90 percent of the oxygen-demanding substances
and suspended solids. Disinfection is the final stage of
secondary treatment.
sediment–usually applied to material in suspension
in water or recently deposited from suspension. In the
plural the word is applied to all kinds of deposits from the
waters of streams, lakes, or seas.
sedimentary rock–rock formed of sediment, and
specifically: (1) sandstone and shale, formed of fragments
of other rock transported from their sources and deposited
in water; and (2) rocks formed by or from secretions of
organisms, such as most limestone. Many sedimentary
rocks show distinct layering, which is the result of different
types of sediment being deposited in succession.
sedimentation tanks–wastewater tanks in which
floating wastes are skimmed off and settled solids are
removed for disposal.
self-supplied water–water withdrawn from a surface-
or ground-water source by a user rather than being
obtained from a public supply. An example would be
homeowners getting their water from their own well.
seepage–(1) The slow movement of water through
small cracks, pores, Interstices, etc., of a material into
or out of a body of surface or subsurface water. (2) The loss
of water by infiltration into the soil from a canal, ditches,
laterals, watercourse, reservoir, storage facilities, or other
body of water, or from a field.
septic tank–a tank used to detain domestic wastes
to allow the settling of solids prior to distribution to
a leach field for soil absorption. Septic tanks are used
when a sewer line is not available to carry them to a
treatment plant. A settling tank in which settled sludge
is in immediate contact with sewage flowing through the
tank, and wherein solids are decomposed by anaerobic
bacterial action.
settling pond (water quality)–an open lagoon into
is placed and allowed to stand. The solid pollutants
suspended in the water sink to the bottom of the lagoon
and the liquid is allowed to overflow out of the enclosure.
sewage treatment plant–a facility designed to
receive the wastewater from domestic sources and to
remove materials that damage water quality and threaten
public health and safety when discharged into receiving
streams or bodies of water. The substances removed are
classified into four basic areas:
[1] greases and fats;
[2] solids from human waste and other sources;
[3] dissolved pollutants from human waste and decom-
position products; and
[4] dangerous microorganisms.
Most facilities employ a combination of mechanical
removal steps and bacterial decomposition to achieve the
desired results. Chlorine is often added to discharges from
the plants to reduce the danger of spreading disease by
the release of pathogenic bacteria.
sewer–a system of underground pipes that collect and
deliver wastewater to treatment facilities or streams.
sinkhole–a depression in the Earth’s surface caused
by dissolving of underlying limestone, salt, or gypsum.

Drainage is provided through underground channels that
may be enlarged by the collapse of a cavern roof.
solute–a substance that is dissolved in another
substance, thus forming a solution.
solution–a mixture of a solvent and a solute. In some
solutions, such as sugar water, the substances mix so
thoroughly that the solute cannot be seen. But in other
solutions, such as water mixed with dye, the solution is
visibly changed.
solvent–a substance that dissolves other substances,
thus forming a solution. Water dissolves more substances
than any other, and is known as the ‘‘universal solvent.’’
specific conductance–a measure of the ability of
water to conduct an electrical current as measured using a
1-cm cell and expressed in units of electrical conductance,
that is, Siemens per centimeter at 25 degrees Celsius.
Specific conductance can be used for approximating the
total dissolved solids content of water by testing its
capacity to carry an electrical current. In water quality,
specific conductance is used in ground water monitoring as
an indication of the presence of ions of chemical substances
that may have been released by a leaking landfill or
other waste storage or disposal facility. A higher specific
conductance in water drawn from downgradient wells
when compared to upgradient wells indicates possible
contamination from the facility.
spray irrigation–a common irrigation method where
water is shot from high-pressure sprayers onto crops.
Because water is shot high into the air onto crops, some
water is lost to evaporation.
storm sewer–a sewer that carries only surface runoff,
street wash, and snow melt from the land. In a separate
sewer system, storm sewers are completely separate from
those that carry domestic and commercial wastewater
(sanitary sewers).
stream–a general term for a body of flowing water;
natural water course containing water at least part of the
year. In hydrology, it is generally applied to the water
flowing in a natural channel as distinct from a canal.
streamflow–the water discharge that occurs in a
natural channel. A more general term than runoff,
streamflow may be applied to discharge whether or not
it is affected by diversion or regulation.
subsidence–a dropping of the land surface as a result
of ground water being pumped. Cracks and fissures
can appear in the land. Subsidence is virtually an
irreversible process.
surface tension–the attraction of molecules to each
other on a liquid’s surface. Thus, a barrier is created
between the air and the liquid.
surface water–water that is on the Earth’s surface,
such as in a stream, river, lake, or reservoir.
suspended sediment–very fine soil particles that
remain in suspension in water for a considerable period
of time without contact with the bottom. Such material
remains in suspension due to the upward components of
turbulence and currents and/or by suspension.
suspended-sediment concentration–the ratio of
the mass of dry sediment in a water-sediment mixture
to the mass of the water-sediment mixture. Typically
WATER SCIENCE GLOSSARY OF TERMS 547
expressed in milligrams of dry sediment per liter of water-
sediment mixture.
suspended-sediment discharge–the quantity of
suspended sediment passing a point in a stream over
a specified period of time. When expressed in tons per day,
it is computed by multiplying water discharge (in cubic
feet per second) by the suspended-sediment concentration
(in milligrams per liter) and by the factor 0.0027.
suspended solids–solids that are not in true solution
and that can be removed by filtration. Such suspended
solids usually contribute directly to turbidity. Defined
in waste management, these are small particles of solid
pollutants that resist separation by conventional methods.
T
tertiary wastewater treatment–selected biological,
physical, and chemical separation processes to remove
organic and inorganic substances that resist conventional
treatment practices; the additional treatment of efflu-
ent beyond that of primary and secondary treatment
methods to obtain a very high quality of effluent. The com-
plete wastewater treatment process typically involves a
three-phase process: (1) First, in the primary wastewater
treatment process, which incorporates physical aspects,
untreated water is passed through a series of screens to
remove solid wastes; (2) Second, in the secondary wastew-
ater treatment process, typically involving biological and
chemical processes, screened wastewater is then passed
a series of holding and aeration tanks and ponds; and
(3) Third, the tertiary wastewater treatment process con-
sists of flocculation basins, clarifiers, filters, and chlorine
basins or ozone or ultraviolet radiation processes.
thermal pollution–a reduction in water quality
caused by increasing its temperature, often due to
disposal of waste heat from industrial or power generation
processes. Thermally polluted water can harm the
environment because plants and animals can have a hard
time adapting to it.
thermoelectric power water use–water used in
the process of the generation of thermoelectric power.
Power plants that burn coal and oil are examples of
thermoelectric-power facilities.
transmissibility (ground water)–the capacity of a
rock to transmit water under pressure. The coefficient
of transmissibility is the rate of flow of water, at the
prevailing water temperature, in gallons per day, through
a vertical strip of the aquifer one foot wide, extending the
full saturated height of the aquifer under a hydraulic
gradient of 100-percent. A hydraulic gradient of 100-
percent means a one foot drop in head in one foot of
flow distance.
transpiration–process by which water that is
absorbed by plants, usually through the roots, is evap-
orated into the atmosphere from the plant surface, such
as leaf pores. See evapotranspiration.
Tributary–a smaller river or stream that flows into
a larger river or stream. Usually, a number of smaller
tributaries merge to form a river.
turbidity–the amount of solid particles that are
suspended in water and that cause light rays shining
548 HARVESTING RAINWATER
through the water to scatter. Thus, turbidity makes the
water cloudy or even opaque in extreme cases. Turbidity
is measured in nephelometric turbidity units (NTU).
U
unsaturated zone–the zone immediately below the land
surface where the pores contain both water and air, but
are not totally saturated with water. These zones differ
from an aquifer, where the pores are saturated with water.
W Division of Water Planning.
wastewater–water that has been used in homes,
industries, and businesses that is not for reuse unless
it is treated.
wastewater-treatment return flow–water returned
to the environment by wastewater-treatment facilities.
water cycle–the circuit of water movement from the
oceans to the atmosphere and to the Earth and return
to the atmosphere through various stages or processes
such as precipitation, interception, runoff, infiltration,
percolation, storage, evaporation, and transportation.
water quality–a term used to describe the chemical,
physical, and biological characteristics of water, usually
in respect to its suitability for a particular purpose.
water table–the top of the water surface in the
saturated part of an aquifer.
water use–water that is used for a specific purpose,
such as for domestic use, irrigation, or industrial
processing. Water use pertains to human’s interaction
with and influence on the hydrologic cycle, and includes
elements, such as water withdrawal from surface- and
ground-water sources, water delivery to homes and
businesses, consumptive use of water, water released
from wastewater-treatment plants, water returned to the
environment, and instream uses, such as using water to
produce hydroelectric power.
watershed–the land area that drains water to a
particular stream, river, or lake. It is a land feature
that can be identified by tracing a line along the highest
elevations between two areas on a map, often a ridge.
Large watersheds, like the Mississippi River basin contain
thousands of smaller watersheds.
watt-hour (Wh)–an electrical energy unit of measure
equal to one watt of power supplied to, or taken from, an
electrical circuit steadily for one hour.
well (water)–an artificial excavation put down by
any method for the purposes of withdrawing water from
the underground aquifers. A bored, drilled, or driven
shaft, or a dug hole whose depth is greater than the
largest surface dimension and whose purpose is to reach
underground water supplies or oil, or to store or bury fluids
below ground.
withdrawal–water removed from a ground- or
surface-water source for use.
X
xeriscaping–a method of landscaping that uses plants
that are well adapted to the local area and are drought-
resistant. Xeriscaping is becoming more popular as a way
of saving water at home.
More on xeriscaping: Texas Agricultural Exten-
sion Service
More on xeriscaping: Texas Natural Resource Center
Y
yield–mass per unit time per unit area
Some of this information is courtesy of the Nevada
HARVESTING RAINWATER
GANESH B. KEREMANE
University of South Australia
Adelaide, Australia
INTRODUCTION
Water is the genesis and continuing source of all life
on the earth, and we all completely depend on this
renewable source. According to the United Nation’s World
Water Development Report (1), ‘‘Mankind’s most serious
challenge in the 21st century might not be war or hunger
or disease or even the collapse of civic order; it may
be the lack of fresh water,’’ which justifies the present
scenario that freshwater is a scarce resource. Although
it is the commonest and the most critical stuff on the
earth, water has been always an undervalued resource.
There are more than 1.4 billion cubic kilometers (km3 )
of water—enough to give every man, woman, and child
more than 230 million cubic meters (m3 ) each if we were
to divide it evenly (2). However, more than 98% of the
world’s water is saltwater, and for our basic vital needs,
we have to depend on freshwater, most of which is locked
in the polar ice caps. This leaves less than 1% of the
earth’s freshwater to be accessed in lakes, rivers, and
groundwater aquifers. The major portion of the water
diverted for human needs is drawn from this renewable,
readily accessible part of the world’s freshwater resources,
thus making it a scarce resource.
NEED FOR WATER HARVESTING
The prevailing water scarcity experienced by most of the
water-scarce countries (arid and semiarid) of the world
can be attributed to high water stress and unsustainable
rates of withdrawal. Dupont (3) attributes this widening
gap between freshwater demand and supply to three main
factors: a limited global supply of freshwater, increased
water consumption, and poor water management. The
global supply of freshwater is limited and unevenly
distributed as against the demand for freshwater, which

increased sixfold between 1900 and 1995 (4,5). Moreover,
the exponential increase in the consumption of water from
population growth, rapid industrial development, and the
expansion of irrigated farmland (6) contributes to added
pressure on the water supply. Of these, the trend toward
irrigating farmland, which provides one-third of the
world’s harvest from just 17% of its cropland, is responsible
for much of the pressure on the water supply and has
risen from 50 million hectares to 250 million hectares
since 1990 (7). Poor water management and conservation
practices have contributed to the decline in the quality
and availability of water in addition to overlogging and
deforestation that are destroying water tables and causing
siltation and salinization. Wasteful and environmentally
destructive farming techniques, overuse of pesticides
and chemical fertilizers, and expansion of urban areas
are other factors that have further reduced freshwater
supplies. The statistics provided in the United Nations
World Water Development Report (1) support this:
• World population is likely to increase by half as much
again, to about 9.3 billion by 2050.
• One liter of wastewater is sufficient to pollute about
eight liters of freshwater, and every day about 2
million tons of wastes are dumped into rivers, lakes,
and streams.
• As of today, it is estimated that across the world there
are about 12,000 cubic kilometers of wastewater,
which is more than the total amount in the world’s
10 largest river basins at any given moment.
• At present, 48% of the earth’s population lives in
towns and cities; this will increase to 60% by 2030.
For these reasons, water has become a scarce resource in
many parts of the world. About 80 countries containing
40% of the world’s population suffer from serious
shortages, mostly in the developing world (4). Despite
widely available evidence of the crisis, ways to help ensure
adequate water supplies for household, agricultural, and
other uses are available to farms and communities.
Rudimentary conservation measures, application of new
technology, and sensible conservation practices could do
much to stabilize water withdrawals (3). Water harvesting
is one such technology.
WATER HARVESTING—TO MAKE EVERY DROP COUNT
Providing irrigation to crops in hot, dry countries (arid
and semiarid) accounts for 70% of the water use in the
world (8). Further, the rise in land pressure has resulted
in using more and more marginal areas for agriculture.
Much of this land is located in the arid and semiarid belts
characterized by scanty, uneven distribution of rainfall,
where much of the precious water is soon lost as surface
runoff. Recent droughts have highlighted the risks from
the failure of monsoons to all life on the earth. Irrigation
may be the most obvious response to drought but has
proved costly and can benefit only a fortunate few (9).
Lately this has gained popularity for an old technology in
a new way, and that technology is water harvesting.
HARVESTING RAINWATER 549
Water harvesting is no new concept for humankind.
Though its importance in mitigating the water scarcity
problem has been highlighted much in the recent
past, it traces its history to biblical times. Extensive
water harvesting apparatus existed 4000 years ago in
Palestine and Greece (10). Critchley and Chapman (9),
while discussing the history of water harvesting systems,
mentioned that the earliest evidence of the use of water
harvesting is the well-publicized systems used by the
people of the Negev Desert, where the hillsides were
cleared of vegetation and smoothed to provide as much
runoff as possible; the water was then channeled in
contour ditches to agricultural fields and/or to cisterns.
In the New World, about 400–700 years ago, people
living in Colarado (North America) and Peru (South
America) also employed relatively simple methods of water
harvesting for irrigation (11). The practice of collecting
water from rooftops is also a very ancient type of water
harvesting, practiced since the earliest times up to the
present. However, renewed interest in the technology of
water harvesting arose in the 1950s in Israel, Australia,
and the United States. Since then, this technology
has developed manifold through experimentation and
demonstration projects.
WHAT IS WATER HARVESTING?
Prinz (12) opines, ‘‘There is no generally accepted
definition of water harvesting.’’ But the term water
harvesting in its crudest form can be understood as,
catching rain as it falls. However, many experts have
defined water harvesting and some of them are mentioned
for reference: Critchley and Chapman (9), in their manual
on water harvesting, define water harvesting in its
broadest sense as the collection of runoff for its productive
use. Thames (11) defines water harvesting systems as
‘‘artificial methods whereby precipitation can be collected
and stored until it is beneficially used. The system includes
a catchment area and a storage facility for the harvested
water, unless the water is to be immediately concentrated
in the soil profile.’’ ‘‘Water harvesting is collecting and
using precipitation from a catchment surface’’ (10).
Though defined differently, it is clear from the
definitions that water harvesting is the practice of
collecting and storing water from various sources for
beneficial use; the catchment area, runoff, and the storage
area are the central elements or components of any water
harvesting system. These elements are briefly explained
in Box 1.
Box 1: Components of Water Harvestinga
Catchment Area. An area that is reasonably imper-
meable to water which can be used to produce runoff.
It may include natural surfaces such as rock out-
crops, surfaces developed for other purposes such as
paved highways or roof tops, and/or surfaces prepared
with minimal cost and effort such as those cleared
of vegetation.
550 HARVESTING RAINWATER
Runoff. That portion of precipitation which is not
intercepted by vegetation, absorbed by the land
surface, or evaporated, and thus flows overland into
a depression, stream, lake, or ocean. Runoff may be
classified as direct runoff or base runoff according to
the speed of appearance after rainfall or melting snow,
and as surface runoff, storm interflow, or groundwater
runoff, according to its source.
Storage Area. Based on where the water is stored, the
storage area can be the soil profile, excavated ponds, or
any underground structure.
1. The Soil Profile: Simple arrangements are made
to direct water from hillsides onto cultivated areas
to store the water immediately in the soil for
plant use. Whether sufficient water can be stored
to offset a prolonged drought is a disadvantage.
2. Excavated Ponds: Ponds excavated in the ground
surface are used for storing large quantities
of water. These are often economical means
of storage, but evaporation and seepage are
serious drawbacks.
3. Underground Structures: Can be in the form
of aquifers (an underground layer of porous
rock, sand, or gravel containing large amounts
of water) or cisterns (man-made underground
construction to store water). In the light of the
disadvantages/drawbacks of the other two types,
it is an interesting alternative.
a
Source: Reference 13.
FORMS OF WATER HARVESTING
As mentioned before, water harvesting has been practiced
for ages and is still relevant worldwide. A great number
of forms exist with various names. Prinz and Singh (14)
group water harvesting techniques into three broad
groups: rainwater harvesting, floodwater harvesting, and
groundwater harvesting. A brief description of these
techniques along with subtypes is given below.
Rainwater Harvesting
Defined as a method for inducing, collecting, storing,
and conserving local surface runoff for agriculture or
other beneficial use (15). This can be further grouped into
three subtypes:
• Water collected from roof tops, courtyards, and
similar compacted or treated surfaces that is used
for domestic purposes or garden crops.
• Microcatchment water harvesting is a method of
collecting surface runoff from a small catchment
area (catchment length usually between 1 and 30
meters) and storing it in the root zone of an adjacent
infiltration basin. The basin is planted with a tree, a
bush, or with annual crops.
• Macrocatchment water harvesting, also called har-
vesting from external catchments, is done where
runoff from a hillslope catchment (catchment length
usually between 30 and 200 meters) is conveyed to a
cropping area located at the hill foot on flat terrain.
Floodwater Harvesting
Defined as the collection and storage of creek flow for
irrigation use. According to Critchley and Chapman (9),
floodwater harvesting is also known as ‘‘large catchment
water harvesting’’ or ‘‘spate irrigation’’ and may be further
classified as
• Floodwater harvesting within a steambed in which
case the water flow is dammed and, as a result,
inundates the valley bottom of a floodplain. The water
is forced to infiltrate and the wetted area can be used
for agriculture or pasture improvement.
• Floodwater diversion wherein the wadi water is
forced to leave its natural course and is conveyed
to nearby fields.
Groundwater Harvesting
A rather new term employed to cover traditional as
well as unconventional ways of groundwater extraction.
Subsurface dams and sand storage dams are some fine
examples of groundwater harvesting. They obstruct the
flow of temporary or short-lived streams in a riverbed, and
store the water in the sediment below the ground surface,
which is useful for aquifer recharge.
WATER HARVESTING STRUCTURES
All the previously mentioned forms of water harvesting
are done with the aid of different permanent or temporary
structures. There are several structures by which water
can be harvested for aquifer recharge. A few most
widely used and cheapest structures are described below.
Barton (16) ranks them among the most popular methods
for two main reasons: low construction cost and ease of
operation and maintenance.
• Contour trenches are excavations parallel to contours
on slopes to conserve water and prevent soil erosion
and thus help water to infiltrate.
• Gully plugs are stone barriers built across gullies and
deep rills that trap sediments eroded from higher up
a slope and impound runoff, encouraging infiltration.
• Check dams are temporary structures constructed
from locally available material such as brushwood,
loose rock, or woven wire to impede the soil and
water removed from the catchment. The impeded
water collects behind the dam and infiltrates the
soil, recharging the aquifer. The cost of construction
ranges from US $200–400 (for temporary structures)
to US $1000–2000 (for permanent structures),
depending on the material used, the size of the gully,
and the height of the dam (16).

• A percolation tank is a dam built on permeable
ground so that floodwater is held back long enough
to percolate into the ground, hence, the name
‘‘percolation tank.’’ This is constructed by excavating
a depression to form a small reservoir or by
constructing an embankment in a natural ravine
or gully. The construction cost is estimated at
approximately US $5,000–10,000.
• Groundwater dams are structures that intercept or
obstruct the natural flow of groundwater. These
are often built within riverbeds to obstruct and
detain groundwater flow so as to sustain the storage
capacity of the aquifer and meet demands during
high periods. These may be either a subsurface dam
that is constructed within the aquifer itself or a sand
storage/silt trapping dam that is constructed above
ground to trap sand transported with floodwater.
• Rooftop harvesting is a method that can be adopted by
individuals. Several techniques to harvest rainwater
from the roof tops are in use: abandoned dug
well, abandoned/running hand pump, gravity head
recharge, and recharge pit (16). Though in use mainly
to harvest water for household and domestic use,
there are evidences of groundwater recharge using
this technique. CGWB (10) has observed additional
recharge to groundwater by dug wells to the extent
of 6.6 TCM with a benefited area of 1.3 hectare
in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra, and, also,
a rise in water level from 1.43 to 2.15 m has
been recorded in Delhi from the adoption of rooftop
harvesting techniques.
CHOICE OF WATER HARVESTING AREA AND
TECHNIQUES
Planning is an important process involved in implement-
ing any water harvesting project by an individual or
community. It starts with the identification of the area
for water harvesting, followed by selection of the tech-
niques/forms/structures. While doing so, it is of utmost
importance to consider the following parameters (11,12).
• Amount and Seasonal Distribution of Rainfall:
Knowledge of the intensity and distribution of rainfall
for a given area is necessary for designing a water
harvesting system.
• Topography: Knowledge of the landform along with
the slope is the next important parameter to
determine the system for harvesting water and also
the structures to be included.
• Soil Type and Depth: Important for designing a
water harvesting system, the characteristics of soils
determine the water movement and the quantity
of water that can be stored and also influence the
rainfall runoff process.
• Provisions for Maintenance: A maintenance pro-
gram, even when the water collected is not being
used (off season), is a must. Failure to provide for
maintenance will result in early failure of the system.
HARVESTING RAINWATER 551
• Acceptance by the Local Community: Last but not
the least, to be successful water harvesting requires
local capacity building, cooperation, and extensive
participation. The users must believe that the system
proposed is the best for their needs. Hence, before
implementing any system, acceptance by the end or
final user is a must to ensure the sustainability of the
system. Only then can it be a success.
CONCLUSIONS
The water harvesting concept used to be more applicable
to arid and semiarid regions where rainfall is either
not sufficient or precipitation is erratic. But, lately,
due to ever increasing population, growing urbanization,
unsustainable withdrawal of groundwater accompanied by
erratic monsoons, other regions of the world are also facing
the problem of water scarcity. Hence, water harvesting
is being looked into as an effective method to mitigate
this problem of water scarcity all over the world because
it offers a method of effectively developing scarce water
resources by concentrating the rainfall/runoff in parts of
the total area. These systems have the potential to increase
the productivity of arable and grazing land by increasing
the yields and by reducing the risk of crop failure.
As studied by Kakade et al. (17), they also facilitate
afforestation, fruit tree planting, and agroforestry. Using
harvested rainwater helps decrease the use of other
valuable water sources such as groundwater, and helps
in groundwater recharge (18). It is also a relatively
inexpensive method of water supply that can be adapted
to the resources and needs of the rural poor. As such,
there is no ‘‘the best’’ system of water harvesting.
However, the system can be designed to fit best within
the constraints of a given location taking into account
technical, social, physical, and economic factors. Thus,
learning from the past experiences and adopting new
technological developments that take place, any water
harvesting system can be considered a successful or an
ideal system if it is
• technically sound, properly designed and maintained,
• economically feasible for the users, and
• capable of being integrated into the social traditions
and abilities of the users.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. United Nations World Water Development Report. (2003).
Accessed at http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/table
contents.shtml.
2. Asian Development Bank. (1999). Annual Report—Special
theme-Water in the 21st Century. Philippines. [http://www.
adb.org/].
3. Dupont, A. (2003). Will there be water wars? Dev. Bull. 63:
November 16–20.
4. United Nations Environmental Programme. (1991). Freshwa-
ter Pollution. UNEP, Nairobi.
5. Gleick, P.H. (1998). The Worlds Water 1998–1999: The
Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press,
Washington, DC, pp. 40–47.
552 URBAN WATER RESOURCE AND MANAGEMENT IN ASIA: HO CHI MINH CITY
6. Wallensteen, P. and Swain, A. (1997). International Fresh-
water Resources Conflict or Cooperation? Stockholm Environ-
ment Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
7. Gleick, P.H. (1993). An introduction to global fresh water
issues. In: Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World’s Fresh
Water Resources. P.H. Gleick (Ed.). Oxford University Press,
New York, p. 6.
8. McCarthy, M. (2003). Water scarcity could affect bil-
lions: Is this the biggest crisis of all? Accessed at
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm.
9. Critchley, W. and Chapman, C. (1991). Water Harvesting—A
Manual for the Design and Construction of Water Harvesting
Schemes for Plant Production. Food and Agriculture Organi-
zation of the United Nations, Rome.
10. Central Ground Water Board. (2000). Rainwater Harvesting
and Artificial Recharge to Groundwater-A Guide to Follow.
CGWB and United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation, New Delhi, India.
11. Thames, J.L. (1985). Water Harvesting. Proceedings of the
FAO Expert Consultation on the Role of Forestry in
Combating Desertification, Saltillo, Mexico June 24–28, 1985,
Thematic paper 3.11.
12. Prinz, D. (1994). Water harvesting: past and future. Sus-
tainability of Irrigated Agriculture. Proc., NATO Advanced
Research Workshop, Vimerio, March 21–26, 1994, Balkema,
Rotterdam, pp. 135–144.
13. Nevada Division of Water Resources. Nevada Water Words
Dictionary. Carson City, NV [http://www.water.nv.gov/].
14. Prinz, D. and Singh, A. (2000). Technological Potential for
Improvements of Water Harvesting. Contributing paper to
the World Commission on Dams final report Dams and
Development: A new Framework for Decision Making,
Earthscan, London, UK.
15. Boers, T.M. and Ben-Asher, J. (1982). A review of rainwater
harvesting. Agric. Water Manage. 5: 145–158.
16. Barton, J. (2002). Water Harvesting for Groundwater
Recharge—Is It Effective? Seminar presented at the stu-
dent seminars on water harvesting in drought prone areas,
University of Wales, Bangor, April 2002.
17. Kakade, B.K., Neelam, G.S., Petare, K.J., and Doreswamy, C.
(2001). Revival of Rivulets Through Farm Pond Based Water-
shed Development. BAIF Development Research Foundation,
Pune, India.
18. Chandrakanth, M.G. and Diwakara, H. (2001). Synergistic
Effects of Watershed Treatments on Farm Economy Through
Groundwater Recharge—A Resource Economic Analysis.
Department of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, India.
URBAN WATER RESOURCE AND
MANAGEMENT IN ASIA: HO CHI MINH CITY
HIEP N. DUC
Environment Protection
Authority, NSW
Bankstown, New South Wales
Australia
INTRODUCTION
Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city in Vietnam, has a
current population of about 5 million that is increasing
rapidly due to internal migration and natural growth. The
water demand and the stress on the environment due to
increasing waste and pollution pose a serious challenge to
the people and the authority administering the city.
The Ho Chi Minh City Service of Communication and
Public Works (SCPW) admitted in September 1998 that
the city’s decades-old water supply system cannot meet
the growing demand. According to the SCPW, the water
consumption is estimated at 800,000 m3 per day, but the
combined daily capacity of its two water plants at Thu
Duc and Hoc Mon and underground wells stops short
at 750,000 m3 . But just only 500,000 m3 is available to
users each day after water loss in delivery is taken into
account (the proportion of water loss is as high as 32% in
some areas). However, in 2000, the daily demand jumped
to 1,250,000 m3 /day but the Water Supply Company can
provide only 850,000 m3 /day.
Ho Chi Minh City is situated next to the Saigon River,
which joins the Dong Nai River to form the northern
and eastern boundaries of the city. This means that
the waterways can be both potential water sources and
receivers of polluted wastes.
The Dong Nai River has a minimum flow of approxi-
mately 100 m3 /s. It originates in the Central Highlands
of Vietnam and flows through Dong Nai and Ho Chi Minh
City with tributaries from other provinces. The total catch-
ment area is 42,665 km2 , and the total flow volume is
30.6 km3 /year (1). Forests cover approximately 30% of the
basin. The upstream area in the lowland part of the river is
the present Cat Tien National Park. The Tri An reservoir
and hydropower plant are located downstream nearby.
WATER ENVIRONMENT AND POLLUTION
One of the important aspects of water resource usage
management is the prevention and mitigation of sources
of pollution going into the watercourses.
Sources of Pollution
The majority of industries are located in industrial zones
around Ho Chi Minh City. In addition to old industrial
zones such as Bien Hoa zone 1 built in 1963, a large
number of new industrial zones were set up recently in
the neighboring provinces of Dong Nai, Song Be, and Ba
Ria-Vung Tau. They were established to attract foreign
investment to set up factories to produce goods for domestic
and export markets. The industrial zone in Bien Hoa
(Dong Nai) is upstream from Ho Chi Minh City. The
foremost concern is that the wastewater discharge from
this zone to the Dong Nai River is near the Hoa An
pumping station that supplies water to the residents of Ho
Chi Minh City (2).
Altogether, it was estimated that about 200,000 m3 /day
of wastewater are discharged into the Dong Nai–Saigon
River from the industrial zones. Industrial source
discharges are located mostly in the Thu Duc and Bien Hoa
areas, but they can also be found scattered along many
canals in and around Ho Chi Minh City. There are five
main canal systems that receive direct wastes from various
sources: Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe, Tau Hu-Ben Nghe, Doi-Te,
Tan Hoa-Lo Gom, and Tham Luong-Vam Thuat. The total
length of these canal systems is about 56 km with about
 URBAN WATER RESOURCE AND MANAGEMENT IN ASIA: HO CHI MINH CITY
100 km of smaller tributaries. According to statistical data
from the Water Supply Company, there is 461.291 m3 of
wastewater discharge into the canal systems daily (2).
Water pollution is more visible during the rainy season
when the inadequate drainage system cannot cope with
the water volume. In many areas of the city, traffic cannot
move due to extensive flooding after a rain.
Pollution Management
Wastewater treatment facilities are required for new and
established industrial zones. In Binh Duong province, a
wastewater treatment plant was built in 1998 for the
Vietnam–Singapore Industrial Park and adjacent areas.
The system includes an 8-km canal to drain rain and
treated wastewater from the zone into the Saigon River.
In Bien Hoa II Industrial Park, a plant for treating
wastewater from factories was put into operation in
1999. The plant has an initial daily capacity for treating
4,000 m3 , and 20 of the 76 factories had been connected to
the plant since it started operating. The 2-hectare plant
has four reservoirs for biological, chemical, and physical
treatment of liquid waste before it is conveyed to another
reservoir for final treatment.
Another issue regarding the management of water
pollution is the storm water system. In 2001, the municipal
Communication and Public Works will spend VND101
billions to upgrade and improve the storm water drainage
system. It is part of a 5-year plan to reduce flooding
during the rainy season. To partly finance the maintenance
and upgrading of the drainage system, the city authority
decided in early 2001 to allow the Water Supply Company
to collect a water drainage levy from water users starting
in July 2001. The rest of the capital is in the form of loans
from international bodies such as foreign governments or
the World Bank.
The most significant plan for improving water quality
and the environment is the Urban Drainage and
Sewer Master Plan. This plan was prepared and
developed in 1999 with assistance from the Japanese
Government. The Nhieu Loc–Thi Nghe canal basin
has been identified and given the highest priority
to improve the water environment and associated
infrastructure (3). The shoreline improvement via house
clearance, relocation, and parkland development as
well as canal dredging has been done since 1996 but
without capital investment in the drainage and sewer
infrastructure. Street flooding and traffic jams during
the rainy season are a frequent phenomenon. The Nhieu
Loc–Thi Nghe Project was started in early 2001; part
of the financing came from a World Bank loan. The
Project is managed and implemented by the Urban
Drainage Company.
The city Urban Drainage and Sewer Master Plan
conforms to the national Urban Wastewater Collection and
Sanitation Strategy Study and the Government Decision
No. 35/1999/QD-TTg of March 5, 1999 (3).
WATER SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION
Government and City Organizations
In 1977, the city People’s Committee established the Envi-
ronmental Protection Council to oversee the environment.
553
In 1992, the Environment Committee was formed. In 1994,
the Department of Science, Technology and Environment
(DOSTE) was established as part of national body run
by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment
(MOSTE) when the Environment Law was passed by the
National Assembly.
The Department of Transport Communication and
Public Works is the city government body in charge
of planning the water supply network and other
infrastructures. HCM Water Supply Company is the city
operating enterprise in charge of supplying water to the
city. The Urban Water Drainage Company is another city
authority that oversees the operation of the wastewater
and storm water network. The Waste Treatment Company
of Ho Chi Minh City is concerned with the disposal of
solid wastes, including household and hospital wastes,
produced in the city. It owns several landfill waste sites in
and around the city. These three public service enterprises
report to the city’s Director of Transport Communication
and Public Works.
All the above companies are city government enter-
prises. The first private water treatment plant in Vietnam
was built on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis under a
20-year contract with the city People’s Committee and the
Water Supply Company of Ho Chi Minh City. The plant
was built and run by Binh An Water Corporation, a con-
sortium of Malaysian companies that has a loan from the
International Finance Corporation (IFC) (4). The Binh An
treatment plant will provide 100,000 m3 /day (about 10%
of the current demand) to the Ho Chi Minh City and Bien
Hoa industrial zone (5).
Water Supply Network
The main water supply plant for Ho Chi Minh City
is the Thu Duc Water Station. It currently supplies
650,000 m3 /day to the city using water from the Dong
Nai River. The Dong Nai Water Supply Project will
increase the plant capacity to 750,000 m3 /day (6). Part
of the project cost is funded by a loan from the Asian
Development Bank (ADB). Lyonaise des Eaux is building
another water plant at the existing Thu Duc Water station
to supply 300,000 m3 each day to districts 2, 7, 9, Thu Duc,
and Nha Be. This is a 25-year joint BOT venture with the
Water Supply Company.
In 1991, there was a project planned to build a new
water supply plant using water from the Saigon River with
funding aid from the Italian government. The planned
supply plant has a capacity of 300,000 m3 /day and would
provide water to District 12, 6, Tan Binh, and Binh Chanh.
But as the project was underway in 1995, the aid was
stopped by the Italian government due to faults in timing
management. Since then, the HCM People Committee
has tried to use various schemes to get it restarted,
first as a joint venture with foreign companies, then as
a BOT project, and finally in April 2000 as a total sale
package including equipment and project works to private
investors. But so far none was successful.
In surrounding areas of the city, the water demand was
alleviated by some new projects. In 1997, the Hoc Mon
Underground Water plant was upgraded to a capacity of
50,000 m3 /daily using a loan from the Asian Development
554 HYDROPOWER—ENERGY FROM MOVING WATER

Bank (ADB). In Dong Nai province, construction of a new

water supply plant is being carried out at Thien Tan. The
US $25 million Thien Tan water project is funded by aid
from the government of the Republic of Korea to provide
clean water to more residents of the province. The plant
will have a capacity of 100,000 m3 /day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Talaue-McManus, L. (2000). Transboundary Diagnostic Analy-

sis for the South China Sea. EAS/RCU Technical Report Series
No. 14, UNEP, Bangkok, Thailand.
2. Nguyen Thi Lan (6/3/1997). Bao Dong o nhiem moi truong nuoc
Tp HCM, Tuoi Tre.
3. World Bank—Vietnam-Ho Chi Minh Environmental Sanita-
tion Project. http://www.worldbank.org/pics/pid/vn52037.txt
4. IFC Press Release (1/7/1998). IFC invests US $25 million in
first private water treatment facility in Vietnam.
5. World Bank—Vietnam Binh An Water Corp. Project,
http://www.worldbank.org/pics/ifcers/vne08948.txt.
6. Saigon Times Daily (March 22, 2001). City seeks capital
scaledown for water supply project.

HYDROPOWER—ENERGY FROM MOVING

WATER

Energy Information
Administration—Department of
Energy

Of the renewable energy sources that generate electricity,

hydropower is the most often used. It accounted for 6
percent of U.S. generation and 42 percent of renewable
generation in 2001. It is one of the oldest sources of
energy and was used thousands of years ago to turn a
paddle wheel for purposes such as grinding grain. Our
nation’s first industrial use of hydropower to generate
electricity occurred in 1880, when 16 brush-arc lamps
were powered using a water turbine at the Wolverine
Chair Factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The first U.S.
hydroelectric power plant opened on the Fox River near
Appleton, Wisconsin, on September 30, 1882. Until that
time, coal was the only fuel used to produce electricity.
Because the source of hydropower is water, hydroelectric
power plants must be located on a water source. Therefore,
it wasn’t until the technology to transmit electricity over
long distances was developed that hydropower became
Niagara Falls in New York. In either instance, the water
widely used.
flows through a pipe, or penstock, then pushes against
Mechanical energy is derived by directing, harnessing,
and turns blades in a turbine to spin a generator to
or channeling moving water. The amount of available
produce electricity. In a run-of-the-river system, the force
energy in moving water is determined by its flow or fall.
of the current applies the needed pressure, while in a
Swiftly flowing water in a big river, like the Columbia
storage system, water is accumulated in reservoirs created
River along the border between Oregon and Washington,
by dams, then released when the demand for electricity
carries a great deal of energy in its flow. So, too, with
is high.
water descending rapidly from a very high point, like
Meanwhile, the reservoirs or lakes are used for boating
and fishing, and often the rivers beyond the dams provide
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the opportunities for whitewater rafting and kayaking. Hoover
public domain in the United States of America. Dam, a hydroelectric facility completed in 1936 on the
 WATER MARKETS IN INDIA: ECONOMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS
Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada, created
Lake Mead, a 110-mile-long national recreational area
that offers water sports and fishing in a desert setting.
Over one-half (52 percent) of the total U.S. hydroelectric
capacity for electricity generation is concentrated in
three States (Washington, California and Oregon) with
approximately 27 percent in Washington, the location
of the Nation’s largest hydroelectric facility—the Grand
Coulee Dam.
It is important to note that only a small percentage of
all dams in the United States produce electricity. Most
dams were constructed solely to provide irrigation and
flood control.
Some people regard hydropower as the ideal fuel for
electricity generation because, unlike the nonrenewable
fuels used to generate electricity, it is almost free, there
are no waste products, and hydropower does not pollute
the water or the air. However, it is criticized because it
does change the environment by affecting natural habitats.
For instance, in the Columbia River, salmon must swim
upstream to their spawning grounds to reproduce, but the
series of dams gets in their way. Different approaches
to fixing this problem have been used, including the
construction of ‘‘fish ladders’’ which help the salmon ‘‘step
up’’ the dam to the spawning grounds upstream.
WATER MARKETS IN INDIA: ECONOMIC AND
INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS
HALANAIK DIWAKARA
University of South Australia
Adelaide, Australia
BACKGROUND
Historically, India’s water resources have been perceived
as an important input to production in agriculture for
regional and economic development. India is an agrarian
economy. Therefore, water is the elixir of life for millions
of farmers in the country. Water markets are not akin
to commodity markets. Because of ambiguous property
rights to both surface and groundwater, informal selling
and buying are popping up in different parts of India.
These are not legal; surface water structure is built by
government funding, so farmers have no right to sell it.
555
In addition, electricity pumping costs are not borne by
farmers and a major portion of groundwater pumping
is through electricity; so farmers have no right to sell
groundwater also.
The water markets are prominent because of the profit
from the sale of water for nonagricultural purposes.
Electricity is virtually free, so selling groundwater for
agriculture is not as profitable as it is for nonagricultural
purposes. Even though nonagricultural purposes such as
domestic water needs are not as large as for agriculture,
consumer demand for domestic water is apparent, and
consumers are willing to pay more than farmers who
buy water for agriculture. Groundwater is reckoned as a
poverty reduction tool in rural India, and its contribution
to rural wealth is more than that of surface water (1).
Increasing demand for groundwater in India on account
of the Green Revolution and commercial farming has
led to enormous pressure on groundwater resources.
Because of the growing population and expanding
economy, the demand for water is surpassing the supply.
Further, development of water resources is constrained
by investment bottlenecks, environmental concerns, and
political and legal snags inherent in interregional water
transfers (3). Though the onus of achieving effective use of
water falls on water markets, unless the true cost (value)
of water is reflected in terms of actual electricity cost, any
attempt by the government would be futile.
Reallocation of water through marketing is a response
to growing demands on limited supplies of water (4).
Neoclassical economic theory tells us that a market
increases efficiency by allocating resources to their most
valuable use. However, in the case of natural resources,
the economic theory of markets may not always be true,
for example, in central California, where the water market
is immature (5). This is precisely true for India as well.
This article explores the nature and extent of water
markets in India and focuses on groundwater markets and
relevant economic and institutional (legislative) aspects.
In the next section, the nature and extent of water markets
in India are provided, followed by some economic aspects
of water markets. In the following section, institutional
aspects focusing on regulation of groundwater resource
are discussed in the context of water markets. Finally,
some water policy (institutional) issues under which water
markets can be improved by a water reform process in
India are discussed.
NATURE OF WATER MARKETS
Recent literature on water markets in India indicates that
markets for groundwater are one of the ways of accessing
irrigation (6). These water markets are niche markets,
highly location-specific and endemic, at least in south
India. In India, water markets are informal; the transfer
of water takes place among farmers (between irrigators).
In informal water markets, enforcement of contracts does
not occur by recourse to legal and institutional measures
but rather on personal trust (4). Some markets for water
resemble close to perfect competition. Each seller is
offering an identical product, so there is free entry and exit
of farmers, no single buyer and seller can influence the
556 WATER MARKETS IN INDIA: ECONOMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS
price, and there is enough information as well (for instance,
water markets in Gujarat). These water markets are
seasonal and not permanent. Though the water transfer
takes place mainly between irrigators, in some pockets
like in periurban areas of Bangalore, a southern city of
India, water is traded between irrigator and nonirrigators,
water markets are localized, and the nature of competition
resembles an oligopoly (7). Similar findings are reported
by Palanisami (8) and Janakarajan (9). Nevertheless, the
demand for groundwater remains large for agriculture.
EXTENT OF WATER MARKETS
The extent of the area irrigated through water markets,
which is often considered a proxy of water trading, varies
across regions as well as over time, depending on a number
of factors such as rainfall, groundwater supply, cropping
patterns, and the cost and availability of electricity (3).
It is estimated that 20% of the owners of the 14.2
million pump sets in India are likely to be involved in
water trading (10); this indicates that water markets are
providing water for about 6 million hectares, or 15% of the
total area irrigated by groundwater (4). This is on the high
side and therefore it cannot be a reliable estimate. Still,
there is a lack of systematic estimates of the magnitude of
water trading on the macrolevel. Using a methodology
based on pump set rental data, Saleth (10) estimated
that 6 million hectares or 15% of the total area under
groundwater irrigation is on account of water trading.
Further, by a net addition to output of $230/ha/year
(based on the difference between the average irrigated
and rain-fed yields, as reported by Government of India),
the total value of output due to water sales is estimated
at $1.38 billion per year (11). According to the irrigation
and electricity acts, water selling is illegal, but it persists
in niches.
ECONOMIC ASPECTS
The thesis behind the economics of groundwater use
is that water is used most efficiently when it is
extracted at rates that maximize net benefits over time.
Hence, the benefit–cost calculus matters. The cost
components include the cost of extracting and delivering
the groundwater, and the opportunity or the uses to
which the water is put determines user cost and benefits.
For example, Diwakara and Nagaraj (7) indicated that
the benefit–cost ratio for groundwater sales to an urban
area in an informal setting is 2.67:1 for the construction
and hotel industries compared to 1.35:1 for paddy crops.
This signals that water transfer to nonagriculture is a
lucrative business. The costs of extraction are primarily
a function of pumping technology, the depth from which
the groundwater can be pumped, and the costs of energy
(mainly electricity in India). These costs increase with
pumping depth and costs of energy and decrease as
pump efficiency is improved. Thus the water market
for agriculture is different from the water market for
nonagriculture. Farmers selling water for nonagricultural
purposes are relatively more efficient than farmers selling
for agriculture because the marginal value product (MVP)
of the former is higher than that of the latter.
In India, the cost of energy used to pump the water is
charged on a flat rate (fixed) basis, $30.55 per horsepower
(in Gujarat), indicating that the marginal extraction cost
of pumping groundwater is zero; this encourages farmers
to use water to the point where the marginal value of
production is close to zero.
The appropriators and policy makers largely ignore
the user pays principle, so water markets are inefficient
and illegal because user costs are not borne either by
the buyer or seller. This has encouraged water sellers to
use electric motors to their full capacity at no marginal
cost. Further, the cost of extraction also includes the
value of the opportunity foregone by extracting and
using the water immediately rather than at sometime
in the future (opportunity cost). The user cost is a
measure of the economic consequences of pumping now
and thereby lowering the water table and increasing the
cost of extraction for all future periods, that is, increasing
negative economic effects that are not internalized.
Therefore, sellers are more into a neoclassical return
through water rates and interlocked markets.
INSTITUTIONAL (LEGAL) ASPECTS
So far in India, there has been little or no effort to devise
appropriate water institutions to cope with the increasing
demand for water in a dynamic agrarian economy.
Solutions to the technical problems of groundwater
resources are well known and are enforceable. However,
efficient allocation and use of water resources depend
on institutions, which have received lip service. An
influential article, ‘‘The Tragedy of the Commons’’ by
Garrett Hardin (12) encouraged scholars to hold the view
that lack of private property rights to the resource has
led to degradation and overexploitation of common pool
resources (13). The solution is to promote self-governing
institutions (14,15).
Albeit there has been an attempt to regulate ground-
water resources through the ‘‘Model Bill to Regulate and
Control the Development of Groundwater’’ in 1992, but
it failed to address the groundwater extraction and use
issues; rather, more emphasis was given to administrative
control mechanisms. This misses the potential manage-
ment opportunities represented by water markets (16).
The National Water Policies of 1987 and 2002 have also
failed to address regulatory issues to govern the private
extraction of groundwater resources.
The issue of property rights has fueled the recent
debate on groundwater ownership. It is believed that
assigning property rights to groundwater and permitting
competitive markets to function can finesse most of the
inefficiencies of the common pool problem (17), but this
neglects the fact that the appropriative activities by which
individuals create effective property rights are themselves
an alternative use of scarce resources (18). The priority
for exclusive private ownership may be an obstacle to
incompletely defining resources situations where some
collective ownership may be more appropriate (19). The
main function of property rights is to encourage greater
internalization of effects (20,21). The rights to extract
groundwater are by and large in the hands of private
 WATER MARKETS IN INDIA: ECONOMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS
individuals who own land. So, the landlords are also water
lords in India, provided the groundwater is available from
the vulnerable aquifers. Groundwater is a common pool
resource unit, so its yield is subtractable and its exclusion
is not an issue of rivalry (22). Hence, defining the rights to
use is a challenging task.
Current energy pricing (flat rate) is not desirable for
India’s groundwater sustainability. Even though some big
farmers use high-energy diesel pumps to lift groundwater,
the water extraction will not be and cannot be as much as
that in the use of electrical pumpsets because farmers
have to pay for diesel and not for electricity. Hence,
groundwater mining and overuse of energy are interlinked
and necessitate a high opportunity cost in water-scarce
regions. In Gujarat State, energy pricing is US $37 per
year per pump horsepower (23). Therefore, marginal cost
pro-rata pricing for electricity could be one of the welfare-
improving institutional measures that could be considered.
However, as Zilberman (24) notes, these welfare measures
would be felt only when the efficiency benefits from reform
are more significant and apparent.
On the one hand, groundwater is treated as a ‘‘free
good,’’ and on the other, it is exploited competitively.
This underscores the importance of well-defined, clearly
enforceable rights to extract groundwater. Groundwater
resources are largely extracted by individual well owners
in India. In the absence of well-defined and enforceable
rights to extract water, the availability of groundwater
is determined and subject to the law of capture, that is,
whoever taps the groundwater first gets to use it. In such
a situation, pumpers have an incentive to extract as much
water as possible, subject to the constraints imposed by
pumping costs (25).
Access to groundwater, a fugitive (dynamic) resource,
is largely a function of rights to extract. Though a
legal framework that ties rights to groundwater to land
ownership governs groundwater use in India, there is no
legal limit on the amount of water a landowner can draw.
Hence, markets for groundwater in India are informal
and illegal and fluctuate in pricing as well as in pricing
methods. For example, if a farmer is selling groundwater
to his neighbor, it is also in return for some labor shortage
situations or may be some interest payments and so on.
These, too, are subsumed in the water charge paid by
the buyer.
In the absence of a limit on the volume of groundwater
extracted, farmers are tapping the resource with myopic
behavior ignoring the fact that one’s extraction is a
function of the neighboring well’s extraction at a time
and over time leading to cumulative interference of wells
that affects the lives of the wells (26). The lack of quantity
regulation of groundwater extraction might lead to the
tragedy of the water law. Hence, quantity regulations are
common practices around the world and are preferred to
taxes (27).
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Though water policy has generally been considered an
important issue, its rational formulation and implementa-
tion have received lip service, and the water policies of the
557
twenty-first century have to be significantly different from
the past policies because of several changes that have
already occurred in the water sector (28). India is gear-
ing up to meet the challenges of the millennium with a
fast developing economy. Throughout history, institutions
have been a panacea for managing natural resources.
Without suitable water institutions, the dream of achiev-
ing sustainable use of water resources will be in vain.
Recognizing water markets as informal institutions that
tackle the problem (access) and efficiency (high value use),
appropriate measures through regulation of groundwater
are the need of the hour for India. It is indicative that
markets and states are now seen not as competing but
as complementary institutions in the quest to ‘‘get the
rules right,’’ and many formulations see a broader range
of institutions of economic governance as essential in this
task, including small scale communities-neighborhoods,
nongovernmental associations, and the like (29). In this
regard, a blend of regulatory and economic measures
applicable to Indian situation is suggested herewith.
There is a lack of explicit policy on water markets in
India. Keeping in view the reckoned benefits of formal
water markets, an attempt could be made to devise a set
of rules focusing on property rights (tradable), quantity
regulation, energy pricing, well-spacing norms, water
laws to promote self-governing institutions that manage
groundwater, and establishing an oversight commission to
settle disputes between users and water authorities.
PROPERTY RIGHTS
Groundwater in India is largely developed by private
investment, as in many parts of the world. However,
the rights to extract water are still chattel to the land.
The potential benefit of well-defined property rights is
that it reduces transaction costs, and assuming access to
credit, small farmers can have water rights. Considerable
consensus exists that, for markets to be effective,
legally defining property rights to water as private and
transferable should be in place (4,30,31) along with a
declaration of rights for efficient use of the resource (32).
As the sovereign power and guardian of the nation’s
resources, as well as the protector of the law and rights,
the government has the power to define necessary property
rights and then dispose them to individuals (33). However,
the third party effects of water markets need attention
because the effects of water transfers and the costs of
administering efficient and fair solutions to these third
party effects could lead to restricting trade (34). In this
regard, quantity regulation would be a suitable strategy.
QUANTITY REGULATION
The groundwater resource is extracted in unlimited quan-
tities in India without regard to its impact on neighboring
wells and environmental consequences. Evidence indi-
cates that, in a variety of situations, governments regulate
undesirable activities by controlling quantity rather than
charging taxes (27). So, simply defining property rights
is not a sufficient condition. It should be blended with
quantity regulation. If quantity regulation is opted for and
558 WATER MARKETS IN INDIA: ECONOMIC AND INSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS
implemented, still, the access to groundwater resources
is a function of number of users across time and space.
Hence, to facilitate efficiency (physical and economic), the
resource has to be priced to reflect its true value. This
could be done through marginal cost pricing of electricity
and groundwater.
MARGINAL COST PRICING
The energy used to lift the groundwater from the
deeper layers of the aquifer in many parts of India is
electricity and diesel to some extent. Electricity is priced
on a fixed (flat rate) basis. Hence, the marginal cost of
extraction is zero, and there is no incentive for users to
conserve the resource. In a true economic sense, users
extract groundwater until the marginal value product
becomes zero. The value of groundwater needs to be
reflected through marginal cost pricing of electricity and
groundwater as well. This could be achieved by pricing
electricity on a pro-rata basis.
WELL-SPACING NORMS
In the absence of well spacing norms, the well interference
problem poses serious threats to sustainability and equity
in well irrigation, especially in water-scarce regions in
India. The withdrawal of groundwater without regard
to recharge efforts goes unabated, and the resource
itself becomes unsustainable by reducing the lives of
wells. So, to avoid the well interference problem, which
underscores sustainability, there is a need for spacing
norms between wells.
PROMOTING SELF-GOVERNING INSTITUTIONS
The community should accept a law to allocate water
rights, regulate quantities of water, implement marginal
cost pricing, and impose well-spacing norms. Evidence
indicates that, if the economic rents from water trading
are concentrated in the hands of a few individuals or
the negative effect on third-party users is large and
unmitigated, the community is not likely to obey the
law (4). Therefore, self-governing institutions, such as
water users’ cooperatives, associations, or small private
well organizations need to be promoted by enacting a
suitable water law. In any society, there is no guarantee
that all stakeholders obey the law. To settle disputes
between violators of the rules, there is a need for an
oversight commission with representatives from users,
local, state, and federal governments.
In conclusion, emphasis should be on collective action
through user groups and cooperatively managed irrigation
systems for sustainable use of water resources. Therefore,
a combination of local water rights and user organizations
should be encouraged. Nevertheless, the institutional
linkage between water markets and rental markets
for irrigation assets needs attention because the rental
market allows farmers to irrigate their farms by renting
irrigation assets from neighbors, and they contribute both
to equity in water use and better use of irrigation assets,
especially when groundwater rights are not defined (35).
These are some of the measures that are believed to be
possible in the Indian scenario and could be incorporated
into legislation, provided that the sociopolitical economy
realizes the need and accepts them. Further, there shall
not be any underenforced water law, especially in the
context of the economic and environmental damage that
has been created and unaccounted for largely due to
policy failure.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. International Water Management Institute. (2002). The socio-
ecology of groundwater in India. Water Policy Briefing 4: 1–6.
2. Bhatia, B. (1992). Lush fields and parched throats: Political
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3. Saleth, R.M. (1994). Groundwater markets in India: A legal
and institutional perspective. Indian Econ. Rev. 29(2):
157–176.
4. Easter, K.W., Rosegrant, W.M., and Dinar, A. (1999). Formal
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5. Carey, J., Sunding, L.D., and Zilberman, D. (2002). Trans-
action costs and trading behaviour in an immature water
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emerging informal groundwater markets in peninsular India:
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Dev. 5(1): 90–105.
8. Palanisami, K. (1994). M.W. Rosegrant and R.G. Schleyer
(Eds.). Tradable Water Rights Experiences in Reforming
Water Allocation Policy, USAID, Arlington, VA.
9. Janakarajan, S. (1994). M. Moench (Ed.), Selling Water:
Conceptual and Policy Debates over Groundwater Markets
in India, VIKSAT, Ahmedabad.
10. Saleth, R.M. (1998). Water markets in India: Economic and
institutional aspects. In: Markets for Water: Political and
performance, K.E. William, M.W. Rosegrant, and A. Dinar
(Eds.). Kluwer Academic, Boston, MA.
11. Mohanty, N. and Gupta, S. (2002). Breaking the gridlock in
water reforms through water markets, Working Paper Series,
Julian L. Simon Centre for Policy Research.
12. Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science 162:
1243–1248.
13. Sethi, R. and Somanathan, E. (1996). The evolution of social
norms in common property resource use. Am. Econ. Rev.
86(4): 766–788.
14. Ostrom, E. and Gardner, R. (1993). Coping with asymmetries
in the commons: Self-governing irrigation systems can work.
J. Political Econ. 7(4): 93–112.
15. Bardhan, P. (1993). Analytics of the institutions of informal
cooperation in rural development. World Dev. 21(4): 633–639.
16. Moench, M. (1998). M. Moench (Ed.), Groundwater Law: The
growing debate, VIKSAT, Ahmedabad pp. 35–68.
17. Gisser, M. (1983). Groundwater: Focusing on the real issue.
J. Political Econ. 91(6): 1001–1027.
18. Grossman, I.H. (2001). The creation of effective property
rights. Am. Econ. Rev. 91(2): 347–352.
19. Dragun, K.A. (1987). Property rights in economic theory. J.
Econ. Issues XXI(2): 859–868.

20. Demsetz, H. (1967). Toward a theory of property rights. Am.
Econ. Rev. 57(2): 347–359.
21. Dragun, K.A. (1983). Externalities, property rights, and
power. J. Econ. Issues XVII(3): 667–680.
22. Walker, J.M. and Gardner, R. (1992). Probabilistic destruc-
tion of common pool resources: Experimental evidence. Econ.
J. 102: 1149–1161.
23. Gupta, K.R. (2002). Water and energy linkages for groundwa-
ter exploitation: A case study of Gujarat State, India. Water
Resour. Dev. 18(1): 25–45.
24. Zilberman, D. (2003). Water marketing in California and the
West. Int. J. Public Adm. 26(3): 291–315.
25. Committee on Valuing Groundwater. (1997). Valuing
Groundwater: Economic Concepts and Approaches. National
Academy Press, Washington, DC.
26. Chandrakanth, M.G. and Arun, V. (1997). Externalities in
groundwater irrigation in hard rock areas. Indian J. Agric.
Econ. 52(4): 761–771.
27. Glaeser, L.E. and Shleifer, A. (2001). A reason for quantity
regulation. Am. Econ. Rev. 91(2): 431–435.
28. Biswas, K.A. (2001). Water policies in the developing world.
Water Resour. Dev. 17(4): 489–499.
29. Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (2000). Walrasian economics in
retrospect. Q. J. Econ. November: 1411–1439.
30. Bauer, J.C. (1997). Bringing water markets down to earth:
The political economy of water rights in Chile, 1976–95.
World Dev. 25(5): 639–656.
31. Hearne, R.R. and Easter, K.W. (1995). Water Allocation and
Water Markets: An Analysis of Gains-from-Trade in Chile,
World Bank Technical Paper Number 315. The World Bank,
Washington, DC.
32. Schlager, E. and Ostrom, E. (1992). Property rights regimes
and natural resources: A conceptual analysis. Land Econ.
68(3): 249–262.
33. Dragun, K.A. (1985). Property rights and Pigovian taxes. J.
Econ. Issues XIX(1): 111–122.
READING LIST
Brennan, D. and Scoccimarro, M. (1999). Issues in defining
property rights to improve Australian water markets. Aust.
J. Agric. Resour. Econ. 43(1): 69–89.
Richards, A. and Singh, N. (2001). No easy exit: property rights,
markets, and negotiations over water. Water Resour. Dev. 17(3):
409–425.
Saleth, R.M. (2004). Strategic analysis of water institutions in
India: applications of a new research paradigm, Research
Report, 79. International Water Management Institute,
Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Shah, T. (1993). Groundwater Markets and Irrigation Develop-
ment: Political Economy and Practical Policy. Oxford University
Press, Bombay.
WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA
SHARAD K. JAIN
National Institute of Hydrology
Roorkee, Uttranchal, India
India occupies an important place in Southeast Asia. Its
geographic area of 3.29 million square kilometers extends
WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA 559
from 8◦ 4 N and 37◦ 6 N latitude and between 68◦ 7 E
and 97◦ 25 E longitude. The country is bounded by the
Himalayas in the north and has a large peninsular region
tapering toward the Indian Ocean. The coastline of India
extends for more than 6000 km. This unique combination
of location and topography, a large peninsula, very high
mountains followed by wide river plains, and the ocean
in the south, create a complex climate and hydrology in
the country.
From the physiographical point of view, India can
be divided into seven broad regions: (1) northern moun-
tains; (2) Plains of Indus and Ganga Basin; (3) Central
Highlands; (4) peninsular plateau, the east coast region;
and (5) the west coast region. Two chains of islands, the
Andaman and Nicobar in the Bay of Bengal and Lakshad-
weep in the Arabian Sea, are also part of India.
The Himalayas in the north are one of the major
mountain ranges of the world. In India, they extend
over 2500 km from east to west, and the width varies
from 250 to 400 km. Topographically, the Himalayas
can be subdivided into three major ranges, the Greater
Himalayas, the Middle Himalayas, and the Shivaliks
whose average heights are 6000, 4000, and 1000 meters,
respectively. The Himalayas are home to many of the
highest peaks of the world and have large permanently
snow-covered areas. Geologically, the Himalayas are
comparatively young mountain chains that are formed
by sedimentary rocks. This coupled with steep slopes and
intense monsoon rainfall yields high sediment loads in
the rivers. The other prominent mountains include the
Aravalis, the Vindhyachals, the Satpuras, the Eastern
Ghats, and the Western Ghats. The mountains are the
primary source of rivers that derive their flow from rainfall
and snow and glacier melt (Himalayan rivers). Plateaux,
another striking feature of the topography in India, range
in elevation from 300 to 900 meters. The major plateaux
are the Malwa, the Vindhyas, the Chota Nagpur, the
Satpura, and the Deccan.
India is traversed by a number of mighty rivers that
can be broadly divided into two groups: the rivers of the
Himalayan region and the peninsular rivers. The snow-
fed Himalayan rivers are mostly perennial, whereas many
small rivers of the peninsular region remain dry during
the summer months.
CLIMATE OF INDIA
The mighty mountains, extensive plateaux, and the ocean
in the south have an important bearing on the climate
of India that can be described as a tropical monsoon
climate. India is a country with extremes of climate. The
climate varies from extremely hot to extremely cold, from
extremely arid to extremely humid, and from continental
to oceanic. Here, temperature varies from more than 47◦ C
at some places in summers to below −40◦ C at many places
in the Himalayas; rainfall varies from almost negligible
to about 1100 cm. The eastern state of Meghalaya is the
home to Cheerapunji, which is famous for the most rainfall
in the world—on the order of 1142 cm in a year. Rainfall
amounting to nearly 104 cm has been recorded at this
place in a day. The potential evapotranspiration over the
560 WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA
country varies from 150 to 350 cm. This wide range of
climatic conditions working in conjunction with a range of
topographic and soil/rock properties produces a complex
and interesting pattern of water resource distribution
across the country.
In India, rainfall is received through southwest and
northeast monsoons, cyclonic depressions, and western
disturbances. Most of the rainfall in India takes place
under the influence of the southwest monsoon between
June and September, except in Tamil Nadu where it
occurs under the influence of the northeast monsoon
from October–November. The rainfall in India shows
great variations, unequal seasonal distribution, unequal
geographic distribution, and frequent departure from
the normal. The flow of monsoon winds is significantly
influenced by high mountains in the north which are an
effective barrier. The peninsular shape of the southern
part that is close to the ocean provides a big source
of moisture.
Monsoons
The southwest monsoon starts from the equatorial belt
and hits the Indian subcontinent in two distinct currents.
The Bay of Bengal branch sets in the northeastern part
of the country, and the Arabian sea branch hits at the
southern part of the peninsula. The first branch moves
westward, and the second northward; together they cover
the whole country. Normally, the monsoon sets in over
the entire country by the beginning of July. The monsoon
withdraws in September.
As the southwest monsoon withdraws, a northeasterly
flow of air begins. This air picks up moisture from the low-
pressure areas in the Bay of Bengal, hits the coastal areas
of Orissa and Tamil Nadu, and causes rainfall. During
this period, severe tropical cyclones are also formed in the
Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. These cyclones are
responsible for intense rainfall in the coastal areas.
The water vapor carried by the monsoon from
June–September amounts to about 11,100 km3 . About
3000 km3 (= 27% of the total) of this moisture precipitates
as rainfall. During the remaining 8 months of the year,
precipitation is of the order of 1000 km3 . In South Indian
states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala,
the northeastern monsoon also contributes significantly to
precipitation.
At the beginning of December, weather disturbances
originating in extratropical regions enter India from
Afghanistan and Pakistan. These are known as western
disturbances and cause moderate to heavy rain and snow-
fall in the northern mountainous region. Light to moderate
rainfall is also experienced in the northern plains.
The annual precipitation over the country, including
snowfall, is about 4000 km3 which is equivalent to about
120 cm of depth. The variation of average annual rainfall
over the country is shown in Fig. 1. As seen from the
figure, there is a considerable amount of areal variation
in the annual rainfall in India. The annual rainfall varies
from about 10 cm in western deserts to about 1100 cm in
northeastern parts of the country. More than half of the
precipitation takes place in about 15 days and that too
in about 100 hours in a year. The number of rainy days
varies from about five in western deserts to 150 in the
northeast. Such a wide variation makes the task of water
resource engineers very challenging.
River Basins of India
A river basin, the natural context in which water
occurs, is the most appropriate unit for planning,
development, and management of water resources. The
Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna basin, the largest basin
in India, receives waters from an area that comprises
about one third of the total area of the country. The second
largest basin, that of Godavari, covers about 10% of the
total area of India. The rivers are well spread over the
entire country except for the Thar desert in Rajasthan.
The catchment areas of the major river basins and the
states through which they flow are given in Table 1. A
map of India showing important rivers is given in Fig. 2.
Based on topography, the river systems of India
can be classified into four groups: (1) Himalayan rivers,
(2) Deccan rivers, (3) coastal rivers, and (4) rivers of the
inland drainage basin. The Himalayan rivers receive input
from rain as well as snow and glaciers and, therefore, are
perennial. During the monsoon months, the Himalayas
receive very heavy rainfall, and these are the periods
when the rivers carry about 80% or more of the annual
flow. This is also the period when floods are commonly
experienced. The Deccan rivers are rain-fed and therefore
have little or no flow during the nonmonsoon season. The
coastal streams, especially on the west coast, have limited
catchment areas and are not lengthy. Most of them are
nonperennial. The streams of the inland drainage basin of
Western Rajasthan are few and far between. They flow for
a time only during the monsoon.
The main river systems in the Himalayas are those
of the Indus and the Ganga–Brahmputra–Meghna. The
River Indus rises near Mansarovar Lake in Tibet. Flowing
through Kashmir, it enters Pakistan and empties into
the Arabian Sea near Karachi. A number of important
tributaries of the Indus, the Sutlej, the Beas, the Ravi,
the Chenab, and the Jhelum, flow through India. The
Bhagirathi and Alakhnanda are two important rivers
that originate in the Garhwal Himalayas. These join at
Dev Prayag to form the Ganga, the most sacred river
of India. It traverses Uttranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
and West Bengal and thereafter enters Bangladesh. Some
important tributaries of the Ganga are the Yamuna,
the Ramganga, the Ghaghra, the Gandak, the Kosi,
and the Sone. Many of these tributaries are mighty
rivers themselves. For example, River Yamuna has
its own mighty tributaries, Chambal and Betwa. The
Brahmaputra rises in Tibet (where it is known by the
name Tsangpo). It enters India in Arunachal Pradesh and
after traversing Assam, enters Bangladesh. Its important
tributaries are the Dibang, Luhit, Subansiri, Manas,
and Tista. The Ganga and Brahmputra Rivers meet at
Goalundo in Bangladesh. The Barak river, the head waters
of the Meghna rises in the hills in Manipur. The Meghna
is part of the Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna system. The
combined Ganga–Brahmaputra River meets the Meghna
in Bangladesh, and this combined system flows into the
Bay of Bengal.
 WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA 561

10
20 LEH
100 30
75 40
60 50
50 60
40 70
30
20

150
10
DLH
60 BRL DPH
JPR 250
80 DJG
LKN 160
75 PTN SHL
10
20 100 250 MP
100
BHJ 250 250
BHP RNC AGT
30 AHM JBP 250
RJK 160 160
40 75 CAL
75

50 60 NGP
60 100
150 CTK
250
400 HBD 150
50
PNA 160 100 Bay
Arabian
of
Sea VSK Bengal
HYD
Goa BLG 100
ANT

ds
a n & Nic o b a r I sl a n
60
400
MNG
MDS
BNG
75
TRP
CHN 100
75
dam

Lakshadweep 250
75
TRV
An

150100
Indian Ocean

(i) Based upon survey of India map with the permission of the surveyor
general of India
(ii) © Government of India copyright 1990.
(iii) The territorial waters of India extend into the sea to a distance of
twelve nautical miles measured from the appropriate base line.

Figure 1. Annual rainfall across India (1).

The Deccan rivers can be further classified in two
groups: west flowing rivers and east flowing rivers. The
Narmada and the Tapi Rivers flow westward into the
Arabian Sea. The important east flowing rivers are the
Brahmani, the Mahanadi, the Godavari, the Krishna,
the Pennar, and the Cauvery. These rivers flow into the
Bay of Bengal. The rivers on the west coast are important
because they contain as much as 14% of the country’s
water resources and drain only 3% of the land.
SURFACE WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA
The water resources of a basin are based on stream flow
measured at a terminal site on the river. The average
annual flow at the terminal point of a river is normally
denoted as the water resource of the basin. Note that this
refers to availability of water with a probability of 50%.
To plan a water resource project, dependability at other
levels such as 75% and 90% is needed. Most Indian rivers
562 WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA

Table 1. Major River Basins of Indiaa

Catchment Area,
Sl. No. River Basin km2 States in the Catchment

1 Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna Basin
1a Ganga Subbasin 862,769 Uttranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana,
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and
Delhi UT.
1b Brahmaputra subbasin 197,316 Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim,
and West Bengal
1c Meghna (Barak) subbasin 41,157 Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, and
Tripura
2 Indus 321,289 J&K, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chandigarh
3 Subernarekha 29,196 Bihar, West Bengal, and Orissa
4 Brahmani–Baitarani 51,822 Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Orissa
5 Mahanadi 141,589 Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Orissa
6 Godavari 312,812 Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, and
Pondicherry
7 Krishna 258,948 Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka
8 Pennar 55,213 Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka
9 Cauvery 87,900 Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and Pondicherry
10 Tapi 65,145 Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Gujarat
11 Narmada 98,796 Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Gujarat
12 Mahi 34,842 Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh
13 Sabarmati 21,674 Rajasthan and Gujarat
14 West flowing rivers of Kachchh, Saurashtra, 334,390 Rajasthan, Gujarat, Daman, and Diu
and Luni
15 West flowing rivers south of Tapi 113,057 Karnataka, Kerala, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Daman, Diu, and Nagar Haveli
16 East flowing rivers between Mahanadi and 49,570 Andhra Pradesh and Orissa
Godavari
17 East flowing rivers between Godavari and 12,289 Andhra Pradesh
Krishna
18 East flowing rivers between Krishna and 24,649 Andhra Pradesh
Pennar
19 East flowing rivers between Pennar and 64,751 Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu
Cauvery
20 East flowing rivers south of Cauvery 35,026 Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry Union Territory
21 Area of North Ladakh not draining into the 28,478 Jammu and Kashmir
Indus
22 Rivers draining into Bangladesh 10,031 Mizoram and Tripura
23 Rivers draining into Myanmar 26,271 Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland
24 Drainage areas of Andaman, Nicobar and 8,280 Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep
Lakshadweep Islands
Total 3,287,260
a
Reference 1.

carry large flows during the monsoon season (June to
September). The average annual flow in important Indian
rivers is given in Table 2.
Usable Surface Water Resources
structures. This is about 36% of the possible storage space
of 690 km3 . To harness the usable surface water, about
400 km3 of additional live storage needs to be created.
Thus, the development of surface water has a long way to
go to achieve full potential.

Though the estimated surface water availability is of the

order of 1869 km3 , the amount of water that can be put
to beneficial uses is much less because India experiences
monsoon climate, implying that nearly 80–90% of the
annual runoff occurs during monsoon months. As enough
storage capacity is not available, a large part of this flow
goes to waste, and some of it also causes flood damage.
As is clear from Table 2, the storage space available
from the projects completed by 1995 is about 174 km3 ;
the projects under construction would provide 76 km3 , a
total of about 250 km3 of storage space, ignoring small
GROUNDWATER RESOURCES ASSESSMENT
Groundwater resources can be classified as static and
dynamic. The static resource can be defined as the amount
of groundwater available in the permeable portion of
the aquifer below the zone of water level fluctuation.
The dynamic resource is the amount of groundwater
available in the zone of water level fluctuation. The
usable groundwater resource is essentially a dynamic
resource which is recharged annually or periodically
 WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA 563

Jammu & Kashmir

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Ind
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Ch Himachal
Pakistan
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Ra Tibet
Shimla
tluj Punjab Chandigarh
Sa
Tsangpo
Haryana
Arunachal
New Delhi Nepal
Uttar Pradesh
Pradesh Sikkim Bhutan Itanagar
Rajasthan Jaipur Ya Gangtok

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G
m Lucknow tra

an
un
Chambai mapu

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Brah Assam Nagaland

da
a

ga
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k
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Lu Ko Dispur Kohima
s

Shilong
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Meghalaya
r

i
Saba

t
Ba

Patna
wa Imphal
as Aja Bangladesh
ar ne y
Manipur
wa

S So
Bihar Tripura
Bet

Agartala Aizawal
Gandhinagar West

Su
Bhopal
Mizoram
hi

be
Bengal
Ma

rn
Gujarat Narmada Madhya Pradesh

ar
Calcutta

ek
Br
Mahanadi Myanmar

ha
ah
ma
Tapi
Maharashtra n
Go
dav Orissa
Va

ari Bhubaneshwar
m
sa
dh

Mumbai
Bh

ar
im

a
a

Andhra
Arabian Pradesh
Sea Hyderabad

sh na
Kri
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Panaji Bay

Andaman and Nicobar Islands

dra

Goa of
Tungabha

Bengal
Pennar

Bangalore Chennai
(India)
Laksha Dweep

Port Blair
Flood prone area .........
Kerala
(India)

Tamil Nadu
Kavarati Cauvery Scale
Kilometers 100 50 0 100 200 300 400 Kilometers

Miles 100 50 0 100 200 300 Miles

Thiruvananthapuram Sri
Indian Lanka Ocean

Figure 2. Important rivers of India and flood-prone areas (1).

by rainfall, irrigation return flows, canal seepage, and basin-wise groundwater potential of the country is given
influent seepage. in Table 3.
Due to diversified meteorologic, topographic, and The groundwater resources available for irrigation
geologic features, the groundwater distribution is quite are about 360.3 km3 ; out of this, the usable quan-
divergent across the country. Rock formations vary from tity (90% of potential) is about 324.27 km3 . Thus
Archean to Recent, and the topography ranges from the total usable groundwater resource is 324.27 +
the mountain terrain of Himalayas to the flat alluvial 71.08(domestic and other uses) = 395.35 km3 . The pre-
plains and coastal tracts. The northern plains in the sent level of development is about 32%.
Indus–Ganga–Brahmputra Basins that extend over a The water that is present in the aquifer below
distance of 2400 km from east to west constitute one of the zone of water level fluctuation is known as static
the largest groundwater reservoirs in the world. Almost groundwater. The static groundwater resource of the
the entire peninsular part is covered by a variety of country is estimated at 10, 812 km3 .
hard and fissured rock formations. The coastal and To summarize, the usable volume of water from surface
deltaic tracts form a narrow strip around the peninsula; resources is 690 km3 , and from groundwater sources
some of them contain highly productive aquifers. The 396 km3 , giving total annual usable water resources of
564 WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA

Table 2. Surface Water Resource Potential of the River Basins of India, km3
Live Storage
Average Annual Estimated Usable
Potential in Flow, Excluding Completed Ongoing Proposed
Sl. No. Name of the River Basin the River Groundwater Projects Projects Projects

1 Indus (area in Indian territory) 73.31 46.00 13.83 2.45 0.27

2 (a) Ganga 525.02 250.00 36.84 17.12 29.56
(b) Brahmaputra, Barak, and others 585.60 24.00 1.10 2.40 63.35
3 Godavari 110.54 76.30 12.51 10.65 8.28
4 Krishna 78.12 58.00 34.48 7.78 0.13
5 Cauvery 21.36 19.00 7.43 0.39 0.34
6 Pennar 6.32 6.86 0.38 2.13 —
7 East flowing and rivers from 22.52 13.11 1.63 1.45 0.86
Mahanadi to Godavari and Krishna
to Pennar
8 East flowing rivers between Pennar 16.46 16.73 1.42 0.02 —
and Kanyakumari
9 Mahanadi 66.88 49.99 8.49 5.39 10.96
10 Brahmani and Baitarani 28.48 18.30 4.76 0.24 8.72
11 Subarnarekha 12.37 6.81 0.66 1.65 1.59
12 Sabarmati 3.81 1.93 1.35 0.12 0.09
13 Mahi 11.02 3.10 4.75 0.36 0.02
14 West flowing rivers of Kutch and 15.10 14.98 4.31 0.58 3.14
Saurastra, including Luni
15 Narmada 45.64 34.50 6.60 16.72 0.46
16 Tapi 14.88 14.50 8.53 1.00 1.99
17 West flowing rivers from Tapi to Tadri 87.41 11.94 7.10 2.66 0.84
18 West flowing rivers from Tadri to 113.53 24.27 10.25 2.31 1.70
Kanyakumari
19 Area of inland drainage in Rajasthan Negligible — — —
desert
20 Minor rivers draining to Myanmar 31.00 0.31 — —
(Burma) and Bangladesh
Total 1869.00 690.00 173.73 75.42 132.30

1086 km3 . In addition, about 10–15% of this quantity will
be available as return flow from irrigation and domestic
uses. As against this, the total withdrawal for all uses
in the year 1990 was 552 km3 . The irrigation sector
accounted for about 83% of this use.
Most of the groundwater development in India is up
to a depth of about 50 meters and is financed mainly by
institutional and private sources. In the shallow region,
the wells include dug wells, dug and bore wells, and
shallow tube wells. The exploitation in the deeper zone
(50 m and more) is usually through the public sector
for community irrigation, water supply, or industrial
purposes. Groundwater development has been intensive in
the plains of the Indus–Ganga basin of Punjab, Haryana,
and Uttar Pradesh.
WATER RESOURCES REQUIREMENT
The increase in population and expansion of economic
activities inevitably lead to rising demands for water for
diverse purposes. Surface water is either used in-stream
for hydropower and navigation or is diverted for off-stream
use. A small part of diverted water returns to streams or
aquifers, and the rest is consumed. Groundwater is used
mostly for irrigation or for domestic requirements.
The Indian economy has traditionally been agricultur-
ally based. At independence, it was of crucial importance
to develop irrigation to increase agricultural production to
make the country self-sustaining and to alleviate poverty.
Accordingly, the irrigation sector was assigned a very
high priority in the 5-year plans. Giant schemes such as
the Bhakra Nangal, Hirakud, Damodar Valley, Nagarju-
nasagar, and Rajasthan Canal project were undertaken
to increase irrigation potential and maximize agricul-
tural production.
Long-term planning has to take into account the growth
of population. A number of individuals and agencies have
estimated the likely population of India by the year
2025 and 2050. According to the estimates adopted by
NCIWRD(1), by the year 2025, the population is expected
to be 1,333 million in the high growth scenario and
1,286 million in the low growth scenario. In the year
2050, the high rate of population growth is likely to result
in about 1,581 million people, whereas the low growth
projections place the number at nearly 1,346 million.
Keeping in view the level of consumption, the estimated
food grain requirements per capita per year would be
218 kg for the year 2025 and 284 kg for the year
2050. After considering factors such as feed requirement,
losses in storage and transport, seed requirements, and
buffer stock, the projected food-grain and feed demand
for 2025 would be 320 million tonnes (high demand
scenario) and 308 million tonnes (low demand scenario).
The requirements for the year 2050 would be 494 million
 WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA 565

Table 3. Groundwater Potential in the River Basins of India (Pro Rata Basis) in km3 /yra
Total Provision for Available Level of
Replenishable Domestic, Groundwater Balance of Groundwater
Groundwater Industrial, and for Groundwater Development,
Sl. No. Name of the Basin Resources Other Uses Irrigation Net Draft Potential %

1 Brahmani with Baitarni 4.05 0.61 3.44 0.29 3.16 8.45

2 Brahmaputra 26.55 3.98 22.56 0.76 21.80 3.37
3 Chambal Composite 7.19 1.08 6.11 2.45 3.66 40.09
4 Cauvery 12.30 1.84 10.45 5.78 4.67 55.33
5 Ganga 170.99 26.03 144.96 48.59 96.37 33.52
6 Godavari 40.65 9.66 30.99 6.05 24.94 19.53
7 Indus 26.49 3.05 23.43 18.21 5.22 77.71
8 Krishna 26.41 5.58 20.83 6.33 14.50 30.39
9 Kutch & Saurashtra Composite 11.23 1.74 9.49 4.85 4.64 51.14
10 Chennai and South Tamil Nadu 18.22 2.73 15.48 8.93 6.55 57.68
11 Mahanadi 16.46 2.47 13.99 0.97 13.02 6.95
12 Meghna 8.52 1.28 7.24 0.29 6.95 3.94
13 Narmada 10.83 1.65 9.17 1.99 7.18 21.74
14 Northeast Composite 18.84 2.83 16.02 2.76 13.26 17.20
15 Pennar 4.93 0.74 4.19 1.53 2.66 36.60
16 Subarnarekha 1.82 0.27 1.55 0.15 1.40 9.57
17 Tapi 8.27 2.34 5.93 1.96 3.97 33.05
18 Western Ghat 17.69 3.19 14.50 3.32 11.18 22.88
Total 431.43 71.08 360.35 115.21 245.13 31.97
a
Reference 2.

tonnes (high demand scenario) and 420 million tonnes (low
demand scenario).
Irrigation
The irrigated area in the country was only 22.6 million
hectare (Mha) in 1950–1951. Food production was much
below the requirement of the country, so due attention
was paid to expansion of irrigation through surface and
groundwater projects. The ultimate irrigation potential
of India has been estimated at 140 Mha. Out of this,
76 Mha would come from surface water and 64 Mha from
groundwater sources.
The quantity of water used for irrigation in the last
century was of the order of 300 km3 of surface water and
128 km3 of groundwater. The estimates indicate that by
the year 2025, the water requirement for irrigation would
be 561 km3 for a low demand scenario and 611 km3 for
a high demand scenario. These requirements are likely
to increase to 628 km3 for a low demand scenario and
807 km3 for a high demand scenario by the year 2050.
Domestic Use
Water for the community water supply is the most
important requirement, and it is about 5% of total water
use. It is estimated that about 7 km3 of surface water
and 18 km3 of groundwater are being used for community
water supply in urban and rural areas. Along with the
increase in population, another important change in
water supply is a higher rate of urbanization. Per the
projections, the higher the expected growth, the higher
would be urbanization. It is expected that nearly 61% of
the population will be living in urban areas by the year
2050 in a high growth scenario as against 48% in a low
growth scenario.
Different organizations and individuals have given
different norms for water supply in cities and rural areas.
The figure adopted by NCIWRD (1) was 220 liters per
capita per day (lpcd) for class I cities. For cities other
than class I, the norms are 165 for the year 2025 and 220
lpcd for the year 2050. For rural areas, 70 lpcd and 150
lpcd have been recommended for the years 2025 and 2050.
Based on these norms and the projection of population, it
is estimated that by the year 2050, the water requirements
per year for domestic use will be 90 km3 for a low demand
scenario and 111 km3 for a high demand scenario. It is
expected that about 70% of the urban water requirement
and 30% percent of the rural water requirement will be
met by surface water sources and the remaining from
groundwater.
Hydroelectric Power
The hydropower potential of India has been estimated
at 84,044 MW at a 60% load factor. At independence
(1947), the installed capacity of hydropower projects was
508 MW which was about 37% of the total installed
capacity. By the end of 1998, the installed hydropower
capacity was about 22,000 MW which was 24.85% of
the total installed capacity of 88,543 MW. The status of
hydropower development in major basins is quite uneven.
For example, the hydropower potential of Brahmputra
Basin is about 34,920 MW which is 41.5% of the total
potential of the country. Only 1.3% of this was developed
by the year 1998. The percentage development in Indus
was about 14.7% and 17.26% in Ganga. The major
hydroelectric projects (above 750 MW) in India are Bhakra,
Dehar, Koyna, Nagarjunasagar, Srisailam, Sharavarthy,
Kalinadi, and Idukki.
566 WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA

Table 4. Annual Water Requirement for Different Uses in km3

Year 2010 Year 2025 Year 2050
Year
Uses 1997–1998 Low High % Low High % Low High %

Surface Water
Irrigation 318 330 339 48 325 366 43 375 463 39
Domestic 17 23 24 3 30 36 5 48 65 6
Industries 21 26 26 4 47 47 6 57 57 5
Power 7 14 15 2 25 26 3 50 56 5
Inland navigation 7 7 1 10 10 1 15 15 1
Flood control — — 0 — — 0 — — 0
Environment (1) afforestation — — 0 — — 0 — — 0
Environment (2) ecology 5 5 1 10 10 1 20 20 2
Evaporation losses 36 42 42 6 50 50 6 76 76 6
Total 399 447 458 65 497 545 65 641 752 64
Groundwater
Irrigation 206 213 218 31 236 245 29 253 344 29
Domestic 13 19 19 2 25 26 3 42 46 4
Industries 9 11 11 1 20 20 2 24 24 2
Power 2 4 4 1 6 7 1 13 14 1
Total 230 247 252 35 287 298 35 332 428 36
Total Water Use
Irrigation 524 543 557 78 561 611 72 628 807 68
Domestic 30 42 43 6 55 62 7 90 111 9
Industries 30 37 37 5 67 67 8 81 81 7
Power 9 18 19 3 31 33 4 63 70 6
Inland navigation 0 7 7 1 10 10 1 15 15 1
Flood control 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Environment (1) afforestation 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Environment (2) ecology 0 5 5 1 10 10 1 20 20 2
Evaporation losses 36 42 42 6 50 50 6 76 76 7
Total 629 694 710 100 784 843 100 973 1180 100

Industrial Water Requirement Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Rajasthan, and

Rough estimates indicate that present water use in the
industrial sector is of the order of 15 km3 . The water use by
thermal and nuclear power plants with installed capacities
of 40,000 MW and 1,500 MW (1990 figures), respectively,
is estimated at about 19 km3 . In view of the shortage of
water, the industries are expected to switch over to water
efficient technologies. If the present rate of water use is
continued, the water requirement for industries in the year
2050 would be 103 km3 , and if water saving technologies
are adopted on a large scale, the requirement is likely to
be nearly 81 km3 .
Tamil Nadu.
Total Water Requirements
Based on the various studies, the total annual requirement
for freshwater from various sectors is estimated at about
1050 billion m3 by 2025 A.D. The breakdown is shown in
Table 4. Estimates show that this demand will be met by
harnessing 700 billion m3 of surface water and 350 billion
m3 of groundwater.
FLOODS AND DROUGHTS

Water Quality Floods and drought are two water-related natural

Water quality issues are gaining recognition as river
waters are getting heavily polluted in many places
and groundwater quality at many places is beginning
to deteriorate. Among the main concerns for water
quality are (1) arsenic in drinking water in West Bengal
(affecting about 5 million persons); (2) fluoride levels are
high in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka,
Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Madhya Pradesh
(affecting 14 million persons); (3) iron levels are high
in the northeastern and eastern parts of the country
(affecting 29 million persons); and (4) salinity is high in
calamities that are recurrent phenomena in India.
Floods
Floods are the most frequent natural calamities faced
by India in different magnitudes, year after year. About
80–90% of the annual precipitation in India takes place
during 4 months of monsoon; this is also the season when
floods are mostly experienced. The main causes of floods in
India are inadequate capacity of river sections to contain
high flows, silting of river beds, and drainage congestion.
Floods are also caused by cyclones, cloud bursts, and
 WATER INFRASTRUCTURE AND SYSTEMS 567

snow/glacier melt. Based on the causes of floods, the
country can be divided into four basins/regions. In the
Brahmaputra and Barak Basin, the main problems in
the state of Assam are inundation caused by overflow of
the Brahmaputra and its tributaries and erosion along
the river bank. In the Ganga Basin, the flooding problem
is confined to small portions in the middle and terminal
reaches. In general, the severity of the problem increases
from west to east and from south to north. The worst flood
affected states in the Ganga Basin are Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar, and West Bengal. In Uttar Pradesh, flooding is
confined to the eastern districts: the rivers that cause
flooding include the Sarada, the Ghagra, the Rapti, and the
Gandak. The major causes here are drainage congestion
and bank erosion. North Bihar is in the grip of floods
almost every year due to spillage of rivers. In West Bengal,
floods are caused by drainage problems as well as tidal
effects. Flood problems are not very severe in the rivers
in the northwest part of India, and here the cause of
floods is inadequate drainage capacity. Flash floods are
also experienced here. Flash floods are characterized by a
sharp rise and recession of river flow, and the damage is
mainly due to the sudden rise of the river, leaving a very
short time for evacuation. In the central and southern
part of the country, floods occur in the Narmada, Tapi,
Godavari, Mahanadi, and Krishna Rivers. The coastal
regions of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu also
face problems due to cyclones.
According to the estimates, the average area annually
affected by floods is 7.52 Mha of which the agricultural
area is 3.52 Mha. According to NCIWRD (1), during the
second half of the twenty-first century, on average, 1515
lives and 95,285 head of cattle were lost every year. The
area liable to floods was assessed at 40 Mha which is about
one-eighth of the geographical area of the country.
Drought
Normally, the term drought is used for a shortage of
precipitation or water at a place when it is expected.
Meteorologic drought is said to occur at a place when
there is more than a 25% decline in rainfall from the
normal value. Meteorologic drought over an extensive
area triggers hydrologic drought which is the condition
of significant depletion of water resources in rivers,
reservoirs, lakes, and springs. A marked depletion of soil
moisture and precipitation leads to agricultural drought.
Based on detailed drought studies for the country, 99
districts have been identified as drought prone. The
total geographic area of these districts is about 1,081,131
sq. km.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. NCIWRD. (1999). Integrated Water Resources Development—A
Plan for Action. Report of The National Commission for
Integrated Water Resources Development. Govt. of India,
Ministry of Water Resources, New Delhi.
2. IWRS. (1998). Theme Paper ‘‘Five decades of water resources
development in India’’. Indian Water Resources Society,
Roorkee.
READING LIST
CGWB. (1995). Ground Water Resources of India, Central Ground
Water Board, Govt. of India, New Delhi.
IWRS. (1999). Theme Paper ‘‘Water: Vision 2050’’. Indian Water
Resources Society, Roorkee.
Rao, K.L. (1973). India’s Water Wealth. Orient Longman Limited,
New Delhi.
WATER INFRASTRUCTURE AND SYSTEMS
NEIL S. GRIGG
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
Water infrastructure is the set of constructed elements
that operate within water resources systems and interact
with environmental elements, or natural systems, such
as watersheds, streams, lakes, and aquifers (see article
on WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT). Table 1 gives examples
of structures used in constructed systems for different
purposes of water management.
In a watershed, sets of these structures may control
water for different purposes. Most apparent might be
a multiple-purpose reservoir, that has a dam and
hydroelectric plant connected to electric transmission
lines. Below might be a diversion dam to enable a canal to
take irrigation water from the stream, if it is located in a
dry region. There might be a re-regulating reservoir with
locks for navigation. Dams are a special class of hydraulic
structure, and they provide barriers to the flow to enable
reservoirs to store water.
Dams have a number of special components, includ-
ing service and emergency spillways, outlet structures,

Table 1. Structures for Water Resources Management

Purpose Conveyance Storage Treatmenta Pump or Generate Control

Water supply Water pipes Reservoir WTP Pumps Valves

Water quality Sewer pipes Tanks, ponds WWTP Sewage pumps Gates
Flood control Channels Detention ponds SWTP Flood pumps Inlets
Hydropower Penstocks Reservoir – Turbines Gates
Navigation Locks Reservoir – – Valves
Environment Rivers Natural storage Wetland – –
a
WTP = water treatment plant; WWTP = wastewater treatment plant; SWTP = stormwater treatment plant.
568 OVERVIEW AND TRENDS IN THE INTERNATIONAL WATER MARKET
and drains. Outlet works might discharge to a munic-
ipal water supply treatment plant, and further down-
stream a wastewater treatment plant might discharge to
the stream.
A reservoir is a lake where water is stored, either
natural or dammed artificially. Reservoirs require special
management attention because they control flow through-
out river systems. As a consequence, they tend to be both
strategically important and controversial. Great dams
such as Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, Aswan Dam
on the Nile River, and Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze
River in China influence whole regions and even nations.
To control flows, there will be valves, gates and
spillways, but they are mostly invisible. Wells might
provide water for users such as farming operations or
irrigation of golf courses.
Diversion structures on a stream change its direction or
flow patterns. They might include intakes, boat chutes, or
river training structures. A fish ladder is a special kind
of diversion structure meant to provide migrating fish
species with methods for swimming upstream, usually
around a dam.
The structures and components that are associated
with conveyance systems include natural open channels
and canals, pipelines, pipe networks and sewers, bridges,
and levees. Open channels are either natural or man-
made. A river is an example of a natural open channel.
Levees are part of conveyance systems that form the banks
of channels to protect land areas from flooding. A canal or
lined drainage ditch would be an example of a man-made
channel. A lock raises or lowers boats and ships up or
down a river.
Pipes, or closed conduits, can be classified as tun-
nels, transmission pipelines, pressure pipe networks, or
sewer networks.
A bridge is part of a conveyance system in the sense
that it provides a method for separating a stream bed
from a road, a rail line, or some other structure crossing
a stream. A culvert has a function somewhat like a bridge
that enables a separation of grades between a small stream
and a roadway or other embankment above.
Hydroelectric plants are facilities that generate electric
energy from water discharge. They include turbines,
generators, and associated hydraulic components.
Pumps impart energy to water and raise it in elevation
or pressure. There are several different types of pumps,
built mainly around the centrifugal or turbine pump
format, and they have numerous applications.
Valves, gates and spillways are control devices for
conveyance systems or dams. Spillways are used as
emergency overflow devices to protect dams. There are a
number of types, normally classified as the service spillway
or emergency spillway. Water flowing over a spillway
normally flows into some type of energy dissipation device
to avoid erosion downstream.
Coordinating the operation of these components places
the focus on the water resources system, as opposed
to individual pieces. A water resources system is a
combination of constructed water control facilities and
environmental elements that work together to achieve
water management purposes (see article on WATER
RESOURCES MANAGEMENT). A constructed system consists
of structural facilities that control water flow and
quality, and a natural water resources system comprises
environmental elements such as watersheds, stream
channels, and groundwater systems.
OVERVIEW AND TRENDS IN THE
INTERNATIONAL WATER MARKET
RANDY T. PIPER
Dillon, Montana
OVERVIEW AND TRENDS
The term ‘‘water market’’ is a slippery concept. Like water,
the term water market is free flowing and can take a
variety of forms, depending on the cultural environment
and who invokes the term. In ‘‘The Importance of
Getting Names Right: The Myth of Markets for Water,’’
Joseph Dellapenna argues for greater precision when
using the language of water markets (1). Consequently,
when we speak of water markets, we need to identify
specifically the rules that governments employ and the
roles that governments play in defining, divesting, and
defending water markets. In most geographic settings,
water markets do not exist without some formal role for
government administration.
In Brazil, local water markets have evolved with
minimal government oversight. Dating from 1854 in
the Cariri region of northeast Brazil, sugar cane
farmers established a water market. The farmers
themselves defined the amount of water for each farm.
Moreover, farmers developed water measuring devices
and monitoring rules independent of formal government
administration. However, this water market limits who
can own the water, that is, water is neither auctioned
to the highest bidder nor sold to nonfarmers who would
divert the water for fisheries or for nonagricultural urban
consumption (2).
Technology can and does play an important role
in water markets. For example, technology can make
bottled water more affordable to consumers and more
aesthetically appealing to consumers. In 2001, Norwegian
water in American markets gained fame and market share
largely because of the package design. Technology can
improve the quality of water, from wastewater treatment
plants to desalination. For example, 120 countries now
employ some form of desalting equipment (3). At the 2001
Bahrain meeting of the World Congress of International
Desalination Association, the primary focus was on the
technologies of water markets, not the institutions of water
markets (4). Technology can improve the institutions
of water markets and make it more cost-effective for
governments and nongovernments to define and enforce
the boundaries of water markets and to monitor the
consumption and transactions of water markets (5).
Technology in the narrow sense can and does improve
the product and package of water and water markets.
Technology in the broad sense can and does improve the
 OVERVIEW AND TRENDS IN THE INTERNATIONAL WATER MARKET
institutions of water markets. However, the technology
and science of water markets per se are not the
paramount challenges in many international markets. In
2000, the 10th Stockholm Water Symposium reached this
conclusion: ‘‘Long-term challenges in water management
are not so much linked to classical scientific and technical
aspects as to institutional innovations’’ (6).
In ‘‘Water Challenge and Institutional Response,’’ R.
Maria Saleth and Ariel Dinar reviewed the institutional
innovations of 11 countries: Australia, Brazil, Chile,
China, India, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa,
Spain, and Sri Lanka. These World Bank researchers
found several commonalities among the 11 countries. For
example, countries have reached a supply limit of water
resource development and are now focusing on the rules of
allocation of their supplies. Countries have also begun
to experiment with decentralization and privatization.
Among the countries (Australia, Israel, Mexico, and Spain)
that have national water plans, Israel and Mexico delegate
much of the allocation administration to subnational levels
that are organized primarily along hydrogeologic lines in
the form of basins (7). These river basin organizations
then may develop rules of participation and the roles of
market-oriented institutions for allocation. According to
R. Maria Saleth and Ariel Dinar, ‘‘Countries have begun
to recognize the functional distinction between centralized
mechanisms needed for coordination and enforcement and
decentralized arrangements needed for user participation
and local level solutions’’ (8).
In the urban water subsector, another institutional
innovation is privatization or corporatization of water and
water infrastructures. Privatization can take a number
of forms, from management, service, and lease contracts
to build, own, operate, and transfer contracts to full pri-
vate ownership under a regulatory regime. In the 1990s,
several transnational corporations acquired water firms
and/or formed subsidiaries to compete in international
markets. This trend is illustrated by noting the home
country’s parent company followed by its water sub-
sidiary: England’s Kelda and Alcontrol, France’s Vivendi
and Vivendi Environment, Germany’s RWE and Bovis
Thames, and America’s Enron and Azurix. In comparison
to the 1990–1994 period, during the 1995–1999 period,
the monetary value of water and sanitation privatization
projects increased by 100% to approximately $9 billion
in Latin America and approximately $9 billion in East
Asia and Pacific regions, by more than 1000% to approxi-
mately $1 billion in sub-Saharan Africa and approximately
$2 billion in Europe and Central Asia regions, and by more
than 2000% to approximately $5 billion in the Middle East
and North Africa regions (9). The ownership and names
of the transnational corporations will change based on
the ebb and flow of supply–demand interactions. How-
ever, the role of any newly named corporation will remain
the same: to maximize its returns on equity for various
privatization projects.
Some institutional analysts consider the two trends of
decentralization and privatization innovative and prefer-
able to centralized national ownership and management.
However, other institutional analysts view these trends
as less than innovative and undesirable. A statement
569
from the conclusions of the 10th Stockholm Water Sym-
posium captures this sentiment: ‘‘The economically based
approach that dominates at present, and has the mar-
ket as a recommended mode of interpretation, was seen
as having severe limitations when it comes to acceptable
ways of coping with the emerging water crisis’’ (10).
Even when countries can overcome the cultural and
linguistic barriers to crafting water market-oriented insti-
tutions, these countries still encounter other barriers, pri-
marily cost-effective technology. Cost-effective technology
exists for the defining, defending, and divesting of water
quantity. For example, affordable geographic information
systems (GIS) allow governments and nongovernments to
monitor whether water users are ‘‘rustling water’’ and con-
suming illegal quantities. However, when the focus turns
to water quality, the costs of technology for measuring
and monitoring pollution trespassers increase dramati-
cally (11). The wealthier countries of the European Union,
South America, Asia, and Middle East can afford some of
these emerging technologies—both for water quantities
and qualities—but less affluent countries cannot allocate
sufficient resources to create water markets, whether for
quantities or qualities.
SUMMARY
Generalizations remain precarious. Institutional suc-
cesses at one national level may not transfer to other
national levels within the same region. Institutional suc-
cesses at one national level may not transfer to subnational
levels within the same country. The barriers to diffusion of
institutional innovations are numerous and varied, flow-
ing from economic, political, and social to technological
and linguistic barriers.
Governments will continue with cross-country agree-
ments that more clearly define their respective rights,
rules, and roles. National governments may play a more
active role in achieving hydrosolidarity among themselves,
but this external hydrosolidarity does not preclude inter-
nal hydrosolidarity in the form of denationalization and
water-market-oriented institutions. In a few countries,
governments may well continue to finance, manage, and
own water resources and view water as a nationalized
‘‘means of production.’’ However, as the World Bank’s
R. Maria Saleth and Ariel Dinar observe, ‘‘But nowhere,
even in China, is the state’s absolute ownership of water
established to exclude private use rights’’ (8).
Many governments will still continue to denationalize
and privatize water resources. In urban areas, private
corporations will continue to build and manage water sys-
tems, while the government finances the construction and
capital costs, and consumers finance the operating costs
via user fees. When urban consumers cannot finance the
full capital and operating costs, governments will experi-
ment with full-cost pricing mechanisms, transparency of
subsidies, and ‘‘water vouchers.’’ In rural areas, national
governments may allocate some of the financing, manag-
ing, and owning to local governments. In turn, localized
governments may experiment with a variety of market-
oriented institutions. The structure of these institutions

570 BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR WATER RESOURCES
could include allowing current owners and users to sell
their water for nonagricultural uses.
During the next few decades, it is unlikely that many
governments will permit the following scenario for inter-
national water markets to develop. Both national and local
governments give full private property rights to agricul-
ture and/or urban ‘‘owners.’’ With full rights, these owners
could then sell their water to whomever they wanted.
Willing higher and highest bidding buyers and consumers
would include rural and urban residents, transnational
corporations, environmental groups, and even water spec-
ulators (12). Once governments and nongovernments have
experimented with internal hydrosolidarity and learned
the lessons from the multiple forms of water-market-
oriented institutions such as water banks and water
vouchers, governments and nongovernments may well
transfer this knowledge to the realm of external hydrosol-
idarity.
Finally, when we interpret ‘‘international water
markets’’ and we more precisely speak in terms of water-
market-oriented institutions, our language and logic must
accurately reflect the multiple roles that governments
play in the creation and evolution of international
water markets.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Dellapenna, J.W. (2000). The importance of getting names
right: the myth of markets for water. William and Mary
Environ Law Policy Law Rev. 25(Winter): 317–378.
2. Kemper, K.E. (1999). Jose Yarley de Brito Goncalves, and
Francisco William Brito Bezerra, Water allocation and
trading in the Cariri region—Ceara, Brazil. In: Institutional
Frameworks in Successful Water Markets: Brazil, Spain,
and Colorado, USA. M. Marino and K.E. Kemper (Eds.).
World Bank Technical Paper 427, February, Washington,
DC, pp. 1–9.
3. Gleick, P.H. (2000). The World’s Water, 2000–2001: The
Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press,
Covelo, CA, p. 96.
4. International Desalination Association. Accessed at http:
//www.ida.bm on August 24, (2001).
5. Landry, C.J. (2001). The role of geographic information
systems in water rights management. In: The Technology
of Property Rights. L.A. Terry and P.J. Hill (Eds.). Rowman
& Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD, p. 23.
6. Stockholm International Water Institute. The Final Overall
Conclusions: The 10th Stockholm Water Symposium. August
14–17, 2000, p. 1. Accessed at http://www.siwi.org/sws2000
/eng/sws2000conclusions.html on September 24, 2001.
7. Maria, R.S. and Ariel, D. (1999). Water Challenge and
Institutional Response: A Cross-Country Perspective. World
Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2045, January,
Washington, DC, p. 36.
8. Saleth and Dinar, p. 37.
9. The Water Page. Accessed at http://www. thewaterpage.com/
ppp new main.htm on October 22, 2001.
10. Stockholm International Water Institute. The Final Overall
Conclusions: The 10th Stockholm Water Symposium. August
14–17, 2000, p. 3. Accessed at http://www.siwi.org/sws2000
/eng/sws2000conclusions.html on September 24, 2001.
11. Yandle, B. (2001). Legal foundations for evolving property
rights technologies. In: The Technology of Property Rights.
Next Page
T.L. Anderson and P.J. Hill (Eds.). Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, Lanham, MD, pp. 12–18.
12. For a review of the dynamics of domestic and international
water markets, see Water Marketing—The Next Generation.
T.L. Anderson and P.J. Hill (Eds.). 2000. The Political
Economy of Water Pricing Reforms Ariel Dinar (Ed.). 2000,
and Water Bank at http://www.WaterBank.com.
BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR WATER
RESOURCES
MOHAMMAD N. ALMASRI
An-Najah National University
Nablus, Palestine
JAGATH J. KALUARACHCHI
Utah State University
Logan, Utah
INTRODUCTION
Best management practices (BMPs) for water resources
are affordable, practical, and effective methods for
eliminating or reducing the movement of pollutants from
the ground surface to groundwater or surface waterbodies.
Such pollutants include nutrients and pesticides, among
others, that may have adverse effects on human health.
In addition, BMPs can be viewed as methods to ensure a
sustainable and safe yield of water resources through
optimal conjunctive management of these resources.
The main premise in developing BMPs is to achieve a
balance between the goal of protecting water resource
quality, for instance, and the economic and social
ramifications of adopting these BMPs. Before adopting
BMPs for a specific site, it is essential to understand
the BMPs thoroughly and to ensure their technical
feasibility through research, experience, field pilot studies,
and surveys. In addition to technical feasibility, BMPs
should be economically well founded through cost-
effectiveness analysis and acceptable via adopting and
maintaining them. BMPs may consist of single practices
or combinations of them based on the problem at
hand and the social and economic ramifications. BMPs
for groundwater resources are important because they
preserve and protect groundwater quality and quantity.
Preservation of groundwater resources minimizes public
health problems and maintains the social and economic
values of groundwater. For instance, the cost of mitigating
polluted groundwater can be extremely high and by
adopting effective BMPs, such mitigation costs can be
reduced dramatically.
This document focuses on BMPs to protect and preserve
groundwater resources from nitrate contamination.
NITRATE CONTAMINATION OF GROUNDWATER
Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water in
many parts of the world and the sole supply of potable
water in many rural communities (1). There is increasing